Opportunities and Challenges for Visible Light Communications in 6G

TLDR

VLC offers a highly attractive short‑range optical communication approach that complements radio and, when combined with reconfigurable optical‑radio networks, provides a high‑performance, highly flexible system suitable for the stringent environments of 6G. The paper explores VLC opportunities for 6G, presenting novel concepts such as interactive VLC, light‑based IoT, living surfaces, and optical communications through bio‑tissues. The authors discuss these novel VLC concepts—including interactive VLC, light‑based IoT, living surfaces, and optical communications through bio‑tissues—to illustrate potential 6G applications. These promising concepts can be applied to identified 6G verticals, opening new research areas.

Abstract

This paper discusses the opportunities for visible light communications (VLC) in the future 6G. VLC is a highly attractive optical communication approach for short-range communications, which complements radio. The use of reconfigurable optical-radio networks creates a high performance, highly flexible communication system that can be used in the most stringent environments of 6G. The paper presents and discusses other novel VLC concepts, such as interactive VLC, light-based IoT, living surfaces and optical communications through bio-tissues. These very promising concepts can be used in the identified 6G verticals, opening new areas of research for 6G.