Connectivity in IoT indoor lighting systems with visible light communications

Abstract

An Internet of Things (IoT) indoor lighting system that consists of multiple luminaires with an IP address, sensors and controllers is considered. The sensors provide sensing information for controlling artificial lighting system and additionally serve as a data source for other building systems and services. In this paper, we consider visible light communication (VLC) among sensors and luminaires for providing connectivity across these elements. Such connectivity enables data access via the luminaires that have a unique IP address. To enable connected applications such as lighting control and device positioning, we propose methods for estimating the optical channel gains and daylight contribution. Analytical results on packet error rate of VLC communication and estimation performance are obtained and verified with simulations and experiments in an office lighting testbed.