A dynamic handover scheme based on bidirectional VLC channel in multi-user attocell networks

Abstract

Light fidelity (LiFi) would be a potential optical wireless communications technology for future mixed-spectrum 5G/6G indoor attocell network, which uses light-emitting diodes based as an optical antenna and offers Gbits capacity. For this scenario, a dynamic handover scheme based on bidirectional visible light communications (VLC) channel is proposed, which uses the uplink light sources to characterize terminal’s movement status for the mobility and make the handover decision in contrast to the unidirectional links. The uplink reference signal received power and the movement state are examined, and the created algorithm is executed in the bidirectional VLC test bed. The experimental results show that the proposed method will reduce the terminal’s handover rate by up to 45% and increase the optical network throughput by up to 26% at the experimental data rate compared with the skipping handover scheme for indoor LiFi network.