T. Metin, M. Corici, M. Emmelmann, V. Jungnickel, C. Kottke, M. Müller, “Integration of Optical Wireless Communication with 5G Systems”, IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM), 2020
Abstract: Researches have been conducted on Optical Wire-less Communication (OWC) technology for a decade now, andbecause of the complexity, it naturally took a long way to becomeapplicable for practical use cases. Current access systems are notsufficient to meet the continuously increasing demand on networkperformance of various applications. Visible Light Communica-tion (VLC) is a form of OWC which specialized to use visiblelight. It is a promising innovation as it exploits new spectrumhaving favorable propagation and interference characteristics forvarious use cases. This paper aims at introducing a solution forintegration of VLC with 5th Generation (5G) network systems.The offered solution also contains details of handover mechanismbetween licensed and unlicensed access types. The proposedwork demonstrates the optical communication with 5G-basednetwork systems in a common infrastructure in order to supplyenhanced connectivity for industrial and private applicationsthat require robust data links, less data loss, less downtime andhigher uplink and downlink rates. Thus, improving connectivityat where Radio Frequency (RF) is not able to bring adequateperformance like indoors. Our setup comprises two different datapaths: one via a 5G system over standardized 3rd GenerationPartnership Project (3GPP) components and the other via non-3GPP unlicensed access with the Light Fidelity(LiFi) devices overnon-3GPP Interworking Function (N3IWF).
