Throughput analysis of dual hop hybrid RF-VLC system with wireless energy harvesting

In this paper, we study a dual hop hybrid radio frequency-visible light communication (RF-VLC) system with wireless energy harvesting technique. In the proposed model the RF channel and the VLC channel are modelled by generalized-K distribution and lambertian emission model, respectively. A decode and forward relay is used as an intermediate node where power splitting relaying (PSR) protocol is employed to harvest energy from the received RF information signal. The source transmits the information signal towards the relay via RF channel. The relay then decodes the received signal and convert it into corresponding light signal. Simultaneously the energy harvesting circuit at relay harvests the energy from the received RF signal. The relay utilizes the harvested energy to aid the transmission of the light signal towards the user situated inside the building’s room at the destination. Further, the statistics of the instantaneous SNR of the hybrid RF-VLC system at the destination are derived by employing the PSR protocol to obtain an accurate closed form analytical expression for the system’s end-to-end ergodic capacity and achievable throughput in terms of Meijer’s G function. Further, with the help of numerical simulations, we analysed the end-to-end ergodic throughput performance of the hybrid system under the influence of varying channel parameters such as signal to noise ratio, power splitting factor, shadowing parameters, distance between source & relay and source transmitted power.