ABSTRACT
Visible light communications (VLC) use the visible spectrum and provide wireless communication using omnipresent light-emitting diodes (LEDs). This chapter provides an overview of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) standard describing the main features of physical (PHY) and medium access control (MAC) layers. It presents simulation results to demonstrate the key performance metrics such as bit error rate (BER), throughput, and latency. A personal area network (PAN) is the connection of information technology devices within a short distance. IEEE Standard 802.15.7 defines visible light communication personal area network (VPAN) as its network type. In the IEEE 802.15.7 standard, with the active region divided into equally spaced slots, a superframe includes three main parts: a beacon, a contention-access period (CAP), and a contention-free period (CFP). The chapter presents a comprehensive performance evaluation of major MAC layer metrics—throughput, delay, power consumption, collision probability, and packet drop probability based on Markov modeling.
