Analysis of communication distance and energy harvesting for vehicular VLC using commercial taillights

Abstract

This paper presents an investigation into the communication range and energy harvesting capabilities of a vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) visible light communication (VLC) system that utilizes commercial taillights (TLs) as wireless transmitters and a single photodetector (PD) as the wireless receiver. First, We derived a closed-form expression for the distance and the harvested energy using realistic ray-tracing channel models that consider the asymmetrical pattern of commercial car taillights. Then, analyze the impact of various transceivers and system parameters on the overall performance of the V2V VLC system. Our findings demonstrated that the proposed V2V VLC system could achieve a communication range of more than 50 m at a BER threshold of 10-3 for low data rate applications (i.e., safety) and more than 30 m for higher data rate application at same BER target. Our results further reveal that an energy harvesting of 4.5 mJ can be achieved when the BER performance is kept at 10-6, making it a promising solution for low-power wireless communication in V2V VLC scenarios. Moreover, the results have shown that the harvested energy can be affected by parameters such as the BER, bandwidth, and electrical transmitting power, which emphasizes the importance of optimizing these parameters for optimal harvesting energy. Overall, this paper provides valuable insights into the potential of V2V VLC systems for energy-efficient communication in vehicular communications