Outage Probability Analysis of RF/FSO-VLC Communication Relaying System

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the outage probability of a hybrid RF/FSO outdoor system relaying to indoor VLC access points, deriving a closed-form expression and exploring how system parameters affect performance.

Contribution

It introduces a novel outage probability analytical expression for an RF/FSO-VLC relaying system and investigates the impact of various system and channel parameters.

Findings

Higher VLC optical power improves performance.

Indoor height increases outage probability due to longer optical paths.

An outage probability floor limits system performance.

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of the asymmetric relaying system which provides communication between hybrid outdoor sub-system and indoor visible light communications (VLC) access points. The outdoor sub-system represents a hybrid radio-frequency (RF)/free-space optical (FSO) system, introduced to reduce the impact of weather conditions on transmission quality. Closed-form outage probability analytical expression is derived. Numerical results are presented and confirmed by Monte Carlo simulations. The effects of system and channel parameters on the outage probability performance are investigated and discussed. Greater optical transmitted power of the VLC subsystem reflects in better system performance, as well as lower indoor environment height. When the indoor room is higher, the propagation of the optical signal is longer, and there will be greater power dissipation and performance deterioration. In addition, the outage probability floor is noticed, which is important limiting factor for relaying system design.