Visible Light Communication and Applications in Smart Grids

To support the massive connectivity and diverse energy management of different tier electricity loads, such as smart appliances, IoT sensors, and electric vehicles, etc, relying solely on radio frequency (RF) spectrum may be strained to fulfill the requirements due to the limited bandwidth, the wide interception range, and the hazardous interference to specific environments. Visible light communication (VLC), as a promising and supplementary candidate, utilizes license-free THz spectrum to offload the wireless data traffic, achieves Gb/s data rate with MIMO technology, and operates harmlessly in RF-sensitive environments. To address the uplink and alignment challenges of conventional symmetric VLC configuration, retro-reflective VLC has been considered as an ultra-low-power uplink solution. Incorporating retro-reflective VLC into traditional RF-based wireless networks provides a low-cost and low-complexity out-of-band secure channel.