Intelligent transportation system using wireless optical communication: a comparative study

Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSs) are being proposed, examined, and applied to enhance road safety and traffic efficiency. However, the automotive industry has stringent criteria for safety applications that demand connections that are dependable and have low latency, and high data rates. In this paper, it is widely agreed that both Visible Light Communication (VLC) and Free Space Optics (FSO) represent promising solutions, because of their complementary advantages compared to Radio Frequency (RF). VLC technology is chosen in ITS overall other optical wireless systems primarily due to its low cost and lack of licensing or new infrastructure requirements. Hence, a comparative study is applied between standalone VLC system, and a hybrid FSO/VLC system in term of Bit Error Rate (BER), coverage distance, and Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR). The VLC/FSO system provides a reliable communication link over a long distance (900 m) compared to VLC standalone system with 10(-6) BER and acceptable SNR of similar to 25 dB.