IRON: an Integrated RF-OWC System for Interoperability in IoT Systems

This paper presents IRON, an integrated Radio Frequency (RF)-Optical Wireless Communications (OWC) interoperability system for IoT deployments. Moving from traditional fully-RF IoT frameworks to a hybrid RF-OWC structure allows one to guarantee several benefits, from higher data rates to security enhancement, without increasing energy consumption. IRON framework exploits the visible light spectrum that can guarantee not only communications but also illumination at the same time, thus making it particularly useful in indoor scenarios. The interoperability between RF and OWC technologies occurs by means of control messages via the LoRa (Long Range) technology, that is able to reach longer distances even in indoor scenarios. The simulation results highlight the benefits of the IRON approach, expressed as the ability to meet specific data rate requirements with limited energy consumption.