Visible Light Communication for Vehicular Networks: A Tutorial

The advent of the fifth-generation technology promises to enable more vertical applications and emerging services, including vehicular networks and intelligent transportation systems (ITSs). To achieve their vision of real-time and safety applications, vehicular networks rely on short-range to medium-range communications. One emerging technology that aims to provide reliability and high data rate in short-range communications is the visible light communications (VLC). Due to its significant advantages, several studies have recently investigated integrating VLC into vehicular networks and ITSs. Despite their attractive features, such networks also face several implementation issues. This tutorial is centered around VLC-based vehicular networks, consolidating outdoor channel modeling, sunlight-resilient receiver design, and implementation challenges particular to vehicle-to-everything setups. To begin with, we present the implementation characteristics of a VLC-based vehicular system and discuss related issues. The underlying system considers a general structure comprising transmitters, channels, and receivers based on photodetectors and cameras, as well as standardization efforts and topological types. In addition, we discuss the impact of the sun and artificial light sources, flickering and dimming, throughput enhancement, uplink security, and mobility on the practical implementation of VLC-based vehicular networks. Finally, we highlight key challenges and potential solutions, and provide directions for future research studies that could advance the development of commercial VLC-based vehicular systems.