Energy-Efficient Resource Allocation for Aggregated RF/VLC Systems

Visible light communication (VLC) is envisioned as a core component of future wireless networks due to, among others, the huge unlicensed bandwidth it offers and fact that does not cause any interference to existing radio frequency (RF) systems. In order take advantage both RF VLC, most research on their coexistence has focused hybrid designs where data transmission user could originate from either an or VLC access point (AP). However, RF/VLC systems fail exploit distinct characteristics (e.g., susceptibility transmissions blockages, limited field-of-view APs receivers, more coverage better reliability systems, etc.) fully reap benefits they can offer. Aggregated in which be served simultaneously by APs, have recently emerged promising robust design for To this end, paper, first time, investigates AP assignment, subchannel allocation (SA), transmit power (PA) optimize energy efficiency (EE) aggregated while considering effects line-of-sight link blockages. A novel challenging EE optimization problem formulated efficient joint solution based alternating developed. More particularly, energy-efficient assignment algorithm matching theory proposed. Then, low-complexity SA scheme allocates subchannels users channel conditions Finally, effective PA presented utilizing quadratic transform approach multi-objective framework. Extensive simulation results reveal that: 1) proposed SA, obtains significant EE, sum-rate, outage performance gains with low complexity, 2) system provides considerable improvement compared