Integration of Optical Wireless Communication with 5G Systems

Researches have been conducted on Optical Wireless Communication (OWC) technology for a decade now, and because of the complexity, it naturally took a long way to become applicable for practical use cases. Current access systems are not sufficient to meet the continuously increasing demand on network performance of various applications. Visible Light Communication (VLC) is a form of OWC which specialized to use visible light. It is a promising innovation as it exploits new spectrum having favorable propagation and interference characteristics for various use cases. This paper aims at introducing a solution for integration of VLC with 5th Generation (5G) network systems. The offered solution also contains details of handover mechanism between licensed and unlicensed access types. The proposed work demonstrates the optical communication with 5G-based network systems in a common infrastructure in order to supply enhanced connectivity for industrial and private applications that require robust data links, less data loss, less downtime and higher uplink and downlink rates. Thus, improving connectivity at where Radio Frequency (RF) is not able to bring adequate performance like indoors. Our setup comprises two different data paths: one via a 5G system over standardized 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) components and the other via non-3GPP unlicensed access with the Light Fidelity(LiFi) devices over non-3GPP Interworking Function (N3IWF).