Opportunities and Challenges for Visible Light Communications in 6G

This paper discusses the opportunities for visible light communications (VLC) in the future 6G. VLC is a highly attractive optical communication approach for short-range communications, which complements radio. The use of reconfigurable optical-radio networks creates a high performance, highly flexible communication system that can be used in the most stringent environments of 6G. The paper presents and discusses other novel VLC concepts, such as interactive VLC, light-based IoT, living surfaces and optical communications through bio-tissues. These very promising concepts can be used in the identified 6G verticals, opening new areas of research for 6G.