Interference Characterization in Downlink Li-Fi Optical Attocell Networks

Abstract: Wireless access to data using visible light, popularly known as light-fidelity (Li-Fi), is one of the key emerging technologies which promises huge bandwidths and data rates. In Li-Fi, the data is modulated on optical intensities and transmitted and detected using light-emitting-diodes (LED) and photodiodes respectively. A network of such LED access points illuminates a given region in the form of attocells. Akin, to wireless networks, co-channel interference or simply interference is a major impediment in Li-Fi attocell networks. Also, when in such networks, the field-of-view (FOV) of a photodiode is limited, the network interference distribution gets affected significantly. So, for any given network scenario, interference characterization is critical for good system design. Currently, there are no good closed-form approximations to interference in Li-Fi attocell networks, that can be used for the analysis of signal-to-interference-plus-noise-ratio (or coverage), particularly for the case of limited FOVs. In this paper, using a technique from Fourier analysis, we provide a very close approximation to interference in one and two dimension Li-Fi attocell networks for any given finite inter-LED separation. We validate the interference approximation by providing theoretical error bounds using asymptotics and by performing numerical simulations. We show that our method of approximation can be extended to characterize interference in limited FOV scenarios as well.