INVISIBLE: Enhanced Handover technique for Vehicular Visible Light Networks

Wide use of light emitting diode (LED) in cars and road sides unites is encouraging the exploitation of Visible Light Communication (VLC) paradigm in vehicular applications. However, real scenarios are characterized by poor Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) conditions and, heavy interference among devices in the same area, that make effective handover operations critical for properly supporting mobility. A novel approach to perform handover in Vehicular Visible Light Networks (V-VLN), based on the evaluation of Interference to Noise Ratio (INR) and Interferer to Interference (IIR) Ratio, is proposed in this work, in place of the conventional approaches based on Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) evaluation. Our approach has been numerically validated, taking into account Adaptive Modulation Scheme (AMS) and a VLC device moving at different speeds. Furthermore, a comparison with SNR-based approach has been provided. Simulation results show how INR-based handover mechanism outperforms SNR-based handover in terms of handover rate, the average delivered data per handover, and handover delay ratio.