Interference Management in Visible Light Communications based on Reconfigurable Photodetectors for Industrial IoT

Visible light communications (VLC) have been proposed for providing connectivity in industrial scenarios where traditional radio-frequency systems are inefficient or they are even banned such as warehouses, mining industry or oil&gas plants. Specifically, providing industrial internet of things (IIoT) services requires to use high-power light emitting diodes as optical access points to satisfy the illumination requirements and simple interference management schemes that guarantee the connectivity of the IIoT devices. In this work, the concept of reconfigurable photodetector composed of multiple photodiodes following an angular diversity arrangement connected to a single signal processing chain is analyzed for ensuring satisfactory IIoT services through VLC in interference limited scenarios. Simulation results show that the proposed approach achieves a signal-to-interference ratio distribution that guarantees IIoT connectivity without the need for complex interference management schemes.