Development of an Indoor Hybrid PLC/VLC/IR Communication System based on TCP/IP Model

In this paper, we report the results obtained from the experimental implementation of a hybrid communication system, composed by: power line communication (PLC), visible light communication (VLC) and infrared light communication (IR). This hybrid PLC/VLC/IR system consists of an uplink and a downlink, allowing full-duplex communication between two personal computers. An important contribution is that it has been possible to integrate the hybrid system to the TCP/IP model through the use of a virtual network interface that allows communication between the elements of the physical layer with the upper layers present in the TCP/IP model. Additionally, USRP software defined radio platforms and the GNU Radio program are used for implementing physical layer. Performed measurements show that the entire system has a latency of 2.85 ms and a bandwidth of 29 kbps. However, using only VLC and IR, latency is reduced to 2.42 ms and the network bandwidth is increased to 2.45 Mbps.