BER performance analysis of OFDM‐based integrated PLC and MIMO‐VLC system

In the present paper, the bit error rate (BER) performance of hybrid power line communication (PLC) and multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) visible light communication (VLC) system (HPMV) has been investigated using line-of-sight (LOS) and LOS plus first reflection (L-R1) signals for room size of 5 m × 5 m × 3 m (configuration A) and 7.5 m × 7.5 m × 3.5 m (configuration B). In the work, Rayleigh fading and Barry channel models have been considered for PLC and VLC channels respectively. The BER has been analysed by varying separations between LEDs as 0.2 m, 0.6m and 1m for both configurations. The results show that the BER for LOS and L-R1 signals decreases upto optimal separation of 0.6 m for configuration A. However, the result indicates that the required optimal separation for configuration B is more than configuration A. The channel frequency response of MIMO-VLC and HPMV system has been inspected and it supports the results of BER simulation. It has been found that, with increase in spatial separation between LEDs, the deep notches and attenuation in the frequency response of MIMO-VLC system decrease. The overall investigation shows that even though OFDM is resilient to frequency selective fading, an optimum separation between LEDs must be chosen according to the room size for the HPMV system.