On the Performance of MIMO-VLC Techniques in Underground Mining Environments

Underground mining visible light communication (UM-VLC) is a promising solution to ensure the well-being of workers and facilitate their work. However, underground conditions present a significant divergence from widely studied indoor environments due to irregular walls, light scattering, and user mobility. The rough environmental conditions of underground mines reduce the reliability of the system. Multiple input and multiple output (MIMO) schemes have been proven to help improve reliability in indoor systems. However, studies on the performance of MIMO in underground mining systems are lacking. Here, we use the MIMO UM-VLC channel model to obtain the bit error rate of multiple MIMO techniques. Numerical simulations prove the viability of the different techniques in the underground mining environment while showing the possibility of further improvements in terms of spectral efficiency.