Communicate to illuminate: State-of-the-art and research challenges for visible light communications

In the near future, the available radio-frequency (RF) bandwidth will not be sufficient to meet the ever increasing demand for wireless access. Visible light communication (VLC) is an alternative method to reduce the burden of RF-based communication, especially in indoor communications. 70% of the communication is indoors, and light emitting diode (LED) arrays are spreading for illumination purposes thanks to their low energy and higher lifetime. VLC can be realized as a secondary application in LED arrays that are placed for lighting. In this way, some of the wireless traffic can be sent using light, with less cost and less carbon footprint. For these reasons, VLC attracts significant research interests. We provide an extensive survey of the current literature by outlining challenges and future research areas in order to facilitate future research in this area. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.