Max–Min Fairness in Rate-Splitting Multiple-Access-Based VLC Networks With SLIPT

This article investigates rate-splitting multiple access (RSMA)-based visible light communication (VLC) networks with simultaneous lightwave information and power transfer (SLIPT). To effectively enhance the fairness among information decoding users (IDUs), we formulate an optimization problem to maximize the minimum data rate by optimizing the direct current bias vector, the common message rates of RSMA, and the transmit precoding vectors. In the problem, the IDUs’ minimum energy harvesting (EH) requirements, the total power budget of the light-emitting diode (LED) transmitters, and the linear operation region of LEDs are also considered as the system constrains. To solve the formulated nonconvex problem, epigraph reformulation is first employed to transform the nonconvex objective function. Then, a series of transformations is proposed and the semi-definite relaxation (SDR) method is adopted to address the rank-one precoding matrix constraint. After that, an iterative algorithm is proposed to obtain an effective suboptimal solution by applying the successive convex approximation. Extensive simulations show that the max–min rate (MMR) is inversely proportional to the number of IDUs and it decreases as the minimum EH requirement becomes more stringent, especially in the high-EH region. Moreover, the value of the maximum drive current imposes a significant impact on the system performance, particularly, the MMR becomes saturated for a given maximum drive current even if the total power budget is sufficient. Besides, RSMA can contribute to both spectral efficiency and energy efficiency greatly in comparison to the traditional multiple access scheme.