Efficient Coding and Decoding Techniques for Hybrid Radio Frequency and Visible Light Communication Links

对高数据速率、可靠的无线通信的需求持续快速增长。随着智能手机、健康和健身可穿戴设备等物联网设备的使用大幅增加（5G将达到数百亿），连接设备的数量预计将在不久的将来出现爆炸式增长。由于射频（RF）频谱变得非常拥挤，替代和互补技术，如可见光通信（VLC）最近变得非常有吸引力。使用VLC的优点是其固有的安全性，无干扰，因为VLC不穿墙，以及巨大的自由带宽。然而，VLC有其缺点，例如有限的室内覆盖和有限的移动性，并且必须以与RF链路混合的方式使用。尽管最近对VLC的兴趣和一些商业产品的可用性，如LiFi，仍然有许多悬而未决的问题需要解决，以便用实际方案充分利用巨大的可用带宽。例如，的发展

The demand for high data rate, reliable wireless communications continues to grow rapidly. The number of connected devices is expected to explode in the near future as the use of of smartphones, the Internet of Things' devices such as health and fitness wearables will vastly increase (10s of billions for 5G). As the radio frequency (RF) spectrum is becoming very crowded, alternative and complementary technologies, such as visible light communications (VLC) have recently become very appealing. The advantages of using VLC are its inherent safety, the lack of interference, because VLC does not penetrate walls, and the huge free bandwidth. However, VLC has its drawbacks such as limited indoor coverage and limited mobility, and has to be used in a hybrid manner with RF links. Despite the recent interest in VLC and the availability of some commercial products such as LiFi, there remain many open problems to be addressed in order to fully exploit the huge available bandwidth with practical schemes. For example, the development of