Ultra-small cell networks with collaborative RF and lightwave power transfer

Abstract

This paper investigates a hybrid radio frequency (RF)/visible light communication (VLC) ultra-small cell network consisting of multiple optical angle-diversity transmitters, one multi-antenna RF access point (AP) and multiple terminal devices. In the network, the optical transmitters play the primary role and are responsible for delivering information and power over the visible light while the RF AP acts as a complementary power transfer system. Thus, we propose a novel collaborative RF and lightwave resource allocation scheme for hybrid RF/VLC ultra-small cell networks. The proposed scheme aims to maximize the communication quality-of-service provided by the VLC under a constraint of total RF and light energy harvesting performance while keeping illumination constant and ensuring health safety. This scheme leads to the formulation of two optimization problems that correspond to the resource allocation at the optical transmitters and the RF AP. Both problems are optimally solved by appropriate algorithms. Moreover, we propose a closed-form suboptimal solution with high accuracy to tackle the optical transmitters’ resource allocation problem, as well as an efficient semi-decentralized method. Finally, simulation results illustrate the achievable performance of the investigated system and the effectiveness of the proposed solutions.