# Merging Visible Light Communications and Smart Lighting: A Prototype with Integrated Dimming for Energy-Efficient Indoor Environments and Beyond

## TL;DR

This paper introduces a smart lighting system that uses visible light for communication and adjusts brightness to save energy while maintaining connectivity.

## Contribution

The key innovation is dynamic light dimming that adapts to ambient conditions to maintain communication and energy efficiency.

## Key findings

- The system maintains a minimum illuminance of 300 lx while adjusting LED duty cycles between 10% and 90%.
- Simulations in an office scenario with up to six users showed reduced energy consumption without compromising connectivity.
- The system achieves reliable communication at 100 kb/s with a Bit Error Rate below 10−7.

## Abstract

This article proposes an improved Visible Light Communication (VLC) solution that, besides the indoor lighting and data transfer, offers an energy-efficient alternative for modern workspaces. Unlike Light-Fidelity (LiFi), designed for high-speed data communication, VLC primarily targets applications where fast data rates are not essential. The developed prototype ensures reliable communication under variable lighting conditions, addressing low-speed requirements such as test bench monitoring, occupancy detection, remote commands, logging or access control. Although the tested data rate was limited to 100 kb/s with a Bit Error Rate (BER) below 10−7, the key innovation is the light dimming dynamic adaptation. Therefore, the system self-adjusts the LED duty cycle between 10% and 90%, based on natural or artificial ambient light, to maintain a minimum illuminance of 300 lx at the workspace level. Additionally, this work includes a scalability analysis through simulations conducted in an office scenario with up to six users. The results show that the system can adjust the lighting level and maintain the connectivity according to users’ presence, significantly reducing energy consumption without compromising visual comfort or communication performance. With this light intensity regulation algorithm, the proposed solution demonstrates real potential for implementation in smart indoor environments focused on sustainability and connectivity.