Modeling of 5G-Enabled Hybrid Visible Light Communication Systems for Autonomous Vehicles

Vehicle-to-vehicle Visible Light Communication (V2V-VLC) is a promising technology in Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) that utilizes visible light signals for communication between autonomous vehicles (AVs). In this paper, we present a new 5G-enabled hybrid V2V-VLC model for AVs complying with IEEE 802.15.7 standard. The proposed hybrid model incorporates both Line-of-Sight (LoS) and Non-Line-of-Sight (NLoS) modules that have low complexity and high reliability. We evaluate the efficacy of the proposed hybrid model by transmitting 100 Mb, 200 Mb, and 300 Mb of data for both LoS and NLoS modules. We further evaluate the reliability of the proposed model by implementing it under different weather conditions and transmission distances. It is found that our proposed hybrid V2V-VLC model offers an effective way to communicate between AVs by its backlight (red LED), especially in accurately identifying braking events of the preceding vehicle for different longitudinal distances, lighting, and weather conditions. Therefore, our proposed model can improve road safety and overall communication efficiency.