Network Architecture of a High-Speed Visible Light Communication Local Area Network

Abstract

A novel ultrahigh-speed LED visible light communication (VLC) local area network to provide beyond 10-Gb/s optical wireless access based on star topology architecture is proposed and experimentally demonstrated for massive users. Fiber link is used as the backbone of the bidirectional VLC network. The hybrid access protocol is utilized: 1) frequency division multiplexing for downlink and uplink fiber transmission and 2) time division multiplexing for bidirectional VLC transmission. A full-duplex VLC network for eight VLC access points (VAPs) has been successfully demonstrated with the total throughput of 8 Gb/s. Each VAP is offered 500-Mb/s downstream and 500-Mb/s upstream. The measured bit error rates of downlink and uplink for all the VAPs are under 7% FEC limit of 3.8 × 10 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">-3</sup> over 25-km standard single mode fiber and 65-cm free space, clearly validating the promising potential of the proposed VLC network architecture for future 40- and 100-Gb/s wireless access.