Abstract
Indoor wireless communication networking has received significant attention along with the growth of indoor data traffc. VLC (Visible Light Communication) as a novel wireless communication technology with the advantages of a high data rate, license-free spectrum and safety provides a practical solution for the indoor high-speed transmission of large data traffc. However, limited coverage is an inherent feature of VLC. In this paper, we propose a novel hybrid VLC-Wi-Fi system that integrates multiple links to achieve an indoor high-speed wide-coverage network combined with multiple access, a multi-path transmission control protocol, mobility management and cell handover. Furthermore, we develop a hybrid network experiment platform, the experimental results of which show that the hybrid VLC-Wi-Fi network outperforms both single VLC and Wi-Fi networks with better coverage and greater network capacity.
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This work is supported by National Program on Key Basic Research Project of China (No. 2013CB329205), National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 61601432) and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.
Wentao Zhang was born in Datong City, Shanxi Province. He received his B.E. degree in electronic engineering from South China University of Technology in 2015. He is now a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Science and Technology of China. His research interests include VLC, MIMO communication, and mmWave communication. (Email: zwentao@mail.ustc.edu.cn)
Li Chen [corresponding author] attended Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT) and obtained his B.S. degree in electrical and information engineering in 2009. He obtained his Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from University of Science and Technology of China(USTC), Hefei, in 2014. In the same year, he won the Chinese Academy of Sciences President Award. He joined the USTC as a postdoctor from 2014 to 2016. He is currently a faculty member of the USTC. (Email: chenli87@ustc.edu.cn)
Xiaohui Chen was born in 1976. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in communication and information engineering from the University of Science and Technology of China(USTC), Hefei, in 1998 and 2004, respectively. He is currently an associate professor at the Department of Electronic Engineering and Information System, USTC. His current research interests include wireless network QoS, mobile computing, MAC protocol and VLC hybrid networking. (Email: cxh@ustc.edu.cn)
Zihao Yu received his B.S. degree from the University of Science and Technology of China(USTC), Hefei, in 2014 and his M.S. degree from the same university in 2017. He is currently working at Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. His major research interests include multiple access and multi-cell handover in wireless communication networks. (Email: Ustcer00@mail.ustc.edu.cn)
Zhiyuan Li attended the University of Electronical Science and Technology of China (UESTC), Chengdu, and obtained his B.S. degree in the School of Electronic Engineering in 2014. He is currently pursuing his Ph.D. degree in Department of Electronic Engineering and Information Science (EEIS), at USTC. His research interests include 5G millimeter wave mobile networks, stochastic geometry, and visible light communications. (Email: lzy886@mail.ustc.edu.cn)
Weidong Wang received his B.S. degree from Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, China in 1989, and his M.S. degree from the University of Science and Technology of China(USTC), Hefei, in 1993. He is currently a full professor in the Department of Electronic Engineering and Information Systems, at USTC. His research interests include wireless communication, microwave, mmWave, and radar technologies. (Email: wdwang@ustc.edu.cn)
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Zhang, W., Chen, L., Chen, X. et al. Design and realization of indoor VLC-Wi-Fi hybrid network. J. Commun. Inf. Netw. 2, 75–87 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41650-017-0039-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41650-017-0039-1