A Top-Down Survey on Optical Wireless Communications for the Internet of Things

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a transformative technology marking the beginning new era where physical, biological, and digital worlds are integrated by connecting plethora uniquely identifiable smart objects. Although Terrestrial (IoTT) has been at center our IoT perception, it recently extended to different environments, such as Underwater (IoWT), Biomedical (IoBT), Underground (IoGT). Even though radio frequency (RF) based wireless networks regarded default means connectivity, they not always best option due limited spectrum, interference limitations caused ever-increasing number devices, severe propagation loss in transmission mediums other than air. As remedy, optical communication (OWC) technologies can complement, replace, or co-exist with audio wave-based systems improve overall network performance. To this aim, paper reveals full potential OWC-based providing top-down survey four main domains: IoTT, IoWT, IoBT, IoGT. Each domain covered dedicated self-contained section that starts comparative analysis, explains how OWC be hybridized existing technologies, points out applications fitting related domain, discusses open networking research problems. More importantly, instead presenting visionary OWC-IoT framework, discloses become reality emphasizing ongoing proof-of-concept prototyping efforts available commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) products.