On the Performance of Intelligent Reconfigurable Surfaces for 6G Indoor Visible Light Communications Systems

Indoor visible light communication (VLC) systems have been extensively studied; however, they present some problems when the main propagation channel component, called Line-of-Sight (LoS), is partially or totally blocked. The effect of this blockage can cause degradation of the received optical signal and decrease the performance of the VLC system. Therefore, in recent years, research has focused on proposing solutions to mitigate this issue. Under this context, in this paper, we propose the use and implementation of intelligent reconfigurable surfaces (IRS) in the VLC indoor system to improve the propagation channel component produced by reflections, called non-line-of-sight (Non-LoS). Furthermore, we have analyzed and established the mathematical expressions of the channel components, including the effect of the IRS on the VLC system. These expressions have been evaluated in a simulated indoor VLC scenario in terms of the channel impulse response (CIR) and the bit error rate (BER). The findings achieved allow us to demonstrate that the use of IRS in the VLC system improves the performance of the system in terms of the parameters evaluated. These results also allow us to highlight the possible use of improvements in the VLC system for inclusion as a 6G enabling technology.