Integration of Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface and Visible Light Communication Systems for 5G and Beyond Communications

The upcoming fifth generation (5G) and beyond communications introduce numerous immerging technological systems. With the rising number of users, meeting the data rate demand utilizing radio frequency (RF) spectrum is becoming extremely difficult, even for 5G communications. For this reason, researchers have shifted to visible spectrum as an alternative to the RF spectrum. Visible spectrum can provide huge channel capacity as a result the network traffic jam can be solved for future communication networks. Visible light communication (VLC) system is done by this visible spectrum. VLC is mainly an indoor communication system. VLC has a high channel capacity over RF communication. The major concern of this VLC system is when the users are far from light source or remote areas, the signal strength becomes poor and data rate received by users is comparatively low. Reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) is a brand new technology for 5G and beyond communications. It allows to maintain high signal strength, better network security, and helps to provide seamless connectivity with high data rate. RIS creates a great impact on VLC system. RIS uses its intelligent beamforming to allow it to get better signal strength and seamless connection to users in remote areas or far from the source. This article combines the RIS technology with VLC and performance analysis between RIS-assisted VLC over traditional VLC. Research finding clearly shows that the overall performance of RIS-assisted VLC is much higher than the current VLC system.