A Head/Taillight Featuring Hybrid Planar Visible Light Communications/Millimetre Wave Antenna for Vehicular Communications

Abstract

With the emergence of the fifth generation and beyond mobile networks, both visible light communications (VLC) and radio frequency (RF) or millimetre wave (mmW) systems are expected to maintain the connectivity in various environments. In outdoor environments the link (VLC or RF) availability is paramount, which is affected by channel conditions. In particular, in vehicular communications other vehicles, harsh environment, and road geometry and structure will have the impact on the link connectivity and availability. In such cases, a front-end antenna solution, which benefits both optical and RF communication links, can be seen as an attractive option that can be fitted in future vehicles. In this paper, we present the design and practical implementation of a planar hybrid VLC/mmW antenna operating at 20.8 GHz and show measured results for characterization of RF and VLC links as well as communications performance. We have used the widely adopted on-off keying and quadrature amplitude modulation schemes with different orders to demonstrate data rates of 5 Mb/s and up to 100 Mb/s for the VLC and mmW links, respectively. By measuring the bit error rate and the error vector magnitude for VLC and Rf links, respectively for each modulation we have shown that the proposed hybrid planar antenna is suitable for example in a typical vehicle-to-vehicle communications.

A Review–Unguided Optical Communications: Developments, Technology Evolution, and Challenges

“…The authors evaluated the efficiency of each modulation technique by calculating the BER and the magnitude of the error vector for both RF and V 2 LC connections. The findings show that the proposed hybrid planar antenna for V 2 C was well suited [329]. The advancement of transportation networks regular vehicle service safer, greener, and more efficient, and paves the way for fully automated vehicles with the advent of the 5G/6G cellular system and beyond.…”

“…Across the development of mobile networks including 5G/6G and beyond, more interest is seen in networking for various environments including V 2 LC, RF, and millimeter wave (mmW) systems. A hybrid VLC/mmW antenna was designed and implemented to function at 20.8 GHz [329]. To achieve data rates of 5 to 100 Mbps using V 2 LC and mmW connections, the authors employed OOK and QAM schemes with different orders.…”