Hybrid RF/VLC Communications Using Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces

In this paper, we suggest the use of Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces (RIS) for hybrid Radio Frequency (RF) Visible Light Communications (VLC). The signal is transmitted from a transmitter T to a relay C using RIS. RIS is implemented as a transmitter or a reflector between T and C. The relay node C decodes the received signal and transmits it to the receiver R using a VLC link. The proposed VLC/RF communications using RIS offers 20–45 dB gain with respect to conventional RF/VLC when the number of reflectors N is varied from $$N=16$$ to $$N=256$$ .

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