26th Telecommunications forum TELFOR 2018
Hybrid Implementation of Millimeter Wave and
Visible Light Communications for 5G Networks
Oguz Ulgen, Student Member, IEEE, Utku Ozmat, Emre Gunaydin
Abstract—Visible light communication (VLC) is one of the
trending topics in wireless communications. Due to it’s high
speed transmission and reliable security properties it can be
used in many indoor applications. With the development of 5G,
a new frequency spectrum is expected to become available for
cellular usage which is extremely high frequency also called
as millimeter wave (mmWave). mmWave can be used in both
indoor and outdoor applications but since it has low penetration
capability, many problems occur during data transmission and
this causes communication to be intermittent. Researchers offered
to use mmWave communication and VLC for cooperative indoor
communication systems. In this paper, two technologies are
introduced with advantages and disadvantages. Later these two
technologies are harmonized and used together for creating
high speed continuous networks for indoor scenarios. Simulation
results are presented under different scenarios.
Index Terms—millimeter wave, 5G networks, visible light
communication, hybrid communication networks
I. I NTRODUCTION
IRELESS communication is on the verge of a rev-
W olution. 5G is expected to change fundamentals of
wireless networking and telecommunication. Increased data
rates, decreased latency, expanded coverage and reduced costs
are main contributions of 5G to the telecommunication.
Due to the scarcity in RF spectrum, overused bands and
extreme data traffics are challenging wireless communication
researchers and engineers to find new ways of providing high
quality service to end users [1]. For solving the scarcity
problem, a new spectrum is offered to be used for 5G
cellular networks which is extremely high frequency (EHF)
spectrum. EHF occupies spectrum between 30 GHz to 300
GHz. Application between these frequencies is named as
millimeter wave (mmWave) communication. mmWave offers
high speed communication and low latency, but low coverage.
Due to its low penetration capability, outdoor communication
of mmWave suffers from different effects such as blockages
of objects, atmospheric attenuation, propagation loss etc. First
steps of utilizing high frequency spectrum bands are started
Oguz Ulgen is with Wireless DC Department, Huawei Turkey R&D
Center, Saray Mah. Ahmet Tevfik Ileri Cad. Onur Ofis Park A-1 Blok
No:10, 34768 Umraniye, Istanbul, Turkey (phone: 90-539-6195471; e-mail:
oguz.ulgen@huawei.com).
Utku Ozmat is with Wireless DC Department, Huawei Turkey R&D
Center, Saray Mah. Ahmet Tevfik Ileri Cad. Onur Ofis Park A-1 Blok
No:10, 34768 Umraniye, Istanbul, Turkey (phone: 90-506-5415261; e-mail:
utku.ozmat@huawei.com).
Emre Gunaydin is with Wireless DC Department, Huawei Turkey R&D
Center, Saray Mah. Ahmet Tevfik Ileri Cad. Onur Ofis Park A-1 Blok
No:10, 34768 Umraniye, Istanbul, Turkey (phone: 90-535-6126795; e-mail:
emre.gunaydin@huawei.com).
978-1-5386-7171-9/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE
Serbia, Belgrade, November 20-21, 2018.
with 24 GHz and 28 GHz [2] and expected to continue with
higher frequency bands.
Meanwhile, another technology is expected to be used for
indoor solutions : Visible light communication (VLC). VLC,
also known as Light Fidelity (Li-Fi), offers high data rates but
since it requires Line-Of-Sight (LOS) communication, indoor
is almost the only possible scenario for VLC.
In this paper a hybrid method is presented which uses both
visible light communication and mmWave communication.
It is offered that for extending 5G cellular network, hybrid
access point (AP) that can support both VLC and mmWave
communication is implemented. In case the user is available,
VLC is used for downlink and mmWave for uplink, else
mmWave is used for both downlink and uplink.
Rest of this paper is organized as follows. In the second
section millimeter wave communication is presented with
applications, advantages and disadvantages. Later, visible light
communication is discussed in section III with applications,
advantages and disadvantages. For the fifth section, hybrid
implementation has been shown and in section V simulation
results and overall evaluation is given. In Section VI, paper is
summarized.
II. M ILLIMETER WAVE C OMMUNICATION
Millimeter wave communication is firstly offered in 2012 as
an alternative approach to be used in 5G cellular networks [3].
In 2013, T. S. Rappaport et. al. [4] has shown why mmWave
communication would work for 5G cellular networks. Later
on many works have focused on different topics of mmWave
communication in 5G [5] [6].
In terms of wireless communication, one of the applications
can be replacing older technologies. For example, replacement
of optical fiber networks that connect mobile stations to each
other. Due to low coverage of mmWave this can only be
implemented for low distance situations. Also radar is one of
the technologies can be evolved with mmWave. With high fre-
quency radar that uses mmWave, lots of new applications are
available such as speed violation detection, motion detection
and alarm systems.
Most of the other applications are the ones which require
high data rates. Such as, Wireless Gigabit Alliance (WiGig)
protocol. With WiGig data rates in order of Gigabits per
second can be achieved. From Ultra High Definition video
transmission to Augmented Reality applications, many appli-
cations can be realized via mmWave communication. In 5G
cellular networks it is expected that 24 GHz to 86 GHz will
be used as mmWave communication band [7].
1

Fig. 1. Atmospheric attenuation versus frequency in millimeter wavelengths.
Advantages of mmWave communication can be summarized
into four main categories; high data rates, low latency, small
physical sized equipment and high security.
Due to high bandwidths, mmWave offers high data rates that
can reach around 10 Gbps. Normally, in order to achieve these
data rates, optical fiber cables are used. Due to installation
costs, maintenance problems and fragile fiber wires and trans-
mission of fiber optics fails oftenly. So having mmWave com-
munication antennas would reduce both cost and maintenance
difficulty. 5G is expected to provide latency less than 1 ms.
In order to achieve this requirement mmWave communication
is an option. With large bandwidths and high frequencies,
mmWave offers much lower latency than the previous fre-
quency bands. Due to smaller range of communication it is
hard to eavesdrop on mmWave communication. This provides
security for users and actually creates an opportunity for
mmWave to be used in security applications.
Disadvantages of mmWave communication is mostly due
to its low propagation capability. For outdoor applications, it
is expected to be used ranges less than 200 meters which is
relatively less than lower frequencies due to its wavelengths.
During foggy, cloudy or dusty air mmWave fails to main its
transmission power in long distances. As an example, atmo-
spheric attenuation with respect to frequency results shown in
Figure 1 [8].
To tackle these problems there are some possible solutions
such as beam-forming, using smaller cell sizes, dense deploy-
ment of antennas and array diversity of user equipment.
III. V ISIBLE L IGHT C OMMUNICATION
Visible light spectrum exists between infrared and ultra-
violet which corresponds to the frequencies between 430
THz to 790 THz. This spectrum consists of the frequencies
which human eyes can detect. Human eyes interprets these
frequencies as colors from red to violet.
In modern terms, VLC is practiced in the late 1990s. One
of the earliest works suggested using LEDs to communicate
[9]. In the latter phases Light Fidelity (Li-Fi) concept was
2
introduced [10]. It is expected in the near future that VLC
will be commonly used for indoor solutions.
VLC is mostly considered to increase network capacity and
be an alternative to the overused frequencies. In this order,
since VLC operates in very high frequencies, transmission is
limited with LOS, mostly indoor solutions are suggested.
One of the applications is expected as aircraft Internet
provision. Since airplanes have fragile electronics components,
they are highly affected from RF frequency signals. To tackle
this challenge, in 2018 a group of researchers from Edinburgh
University has offered a solution [11]. They offer that LEDs
used for illumination of the inside of an aircraft can also
provide Internet for the passengers.
Another application is expected to provide service for home
clients. With increasing data demands of UHD videos, high
capacity video games and AR/VR applications, it is expected
that people will need more data speed. Therefore using VLC
would be a solution since it offers data rates in order of Gbps.
One of the most important advantages of VLC is accessibil-
ity. Almost every indoor environment needs to use illumination
device. If this devices become also capable to transmit and
receive data then VLC will be available almost all the time.
Since only LEDs are used, it is also cost and energy efficient
as well. Since light is not able to penetrate through opaque
objects, VLC is only available in a specific indoor location
and eavesdropping is only possible by physically interception
of the light. This provides a great security of transmission.
As a disadvantage other than low coverage, VLC needs
special handover techniques and assistant technologies which
increases the complexity of the systems.
IV. H YBRID I MPLEMENTATION
Both mmWave communication and VLC is expected to be
used in 5G networks. In literature there are many works for
both technologies used separately but these technologies are
rarely considered together. One of the early studies considered
mmWave and VLC as operating in different layers [12].
Another use case was to use mmWave and VLC for AR/VR
devices to decrease latency [13]. Another implementation was
using both technologies inside of a supermarket where the
technology is called as Internet of radio light (IoRL) [14].
One of the latest works is offered for home and business
places where for indoor mmWave and VLC used together [15].
In [16], these technologies used for indoor services but only
presented as use cases and no details of performance results
are shown.
In this paper, hybrid implementation of mmWave and VLC
communications are offered. It is assumed that both of these
technologies are implemented in a room where no light comes
from outside of the building. Hybrid APs shown in Figure 2
can operate in two modes and provide mmWave and VLC
communication together and also illuminate the room. Loca-
tion of APs are adjusted so that no co-channel interference
is created in VLC. It is assumed that each user equipment
in the room has photo detector and these photo detectors are
perpendicular to the floor which means angle of irradiation
26th Telecommunications forum TELFOR 2018
and angle of incidence is equal. The offered system model is
shown in Figure 3.
Since light density in a room varies, and it is hard for equip-
ment to send uplink signals with light, as an assistant mmWave
signals can be used for uplink. For this, UE could continuously
compare the status of VLC and mmWave network connections.
After one of the channels is chosen, UE can use the channel
in a determined time interval and then check for the Signal-to-
Noise-Interface (SINR) ratios of received mmWave and VLC
signals. Comparison is not simply comparing SINRs but also
including a threshold (λ),chosen as 3 dB for this work, to
benefit from the high speed of VLC even though the signal
is not as good as mmWave. Offered algorithm is shown in
Algorithm 1.
Data: T xV LC , T xmmW ave
Result: channel dedication
while equipment is in range of mmWave do
Calculate SmmW ave−U E and SV LC−U E ;
if SV LC−U E > SmmW ave−U E + λ then
Dedicate VLC downlink channel for the user;
Wait for the determined time interval;
else
Dedicate mmWave downlink channel for the
user;
Wait for the determined time interval;
end
end
Algorithm 1: Channel dedication algorithm
T xV LC and T xmmW ave are transmit powers of VLC
and mmWave signals respectively and SmmW ave−U E and
SV LC−U E are received signal powers at user equipment.
For path loss calculation (in terms of dB) ITU path loss
model is used [17] and also shown in (1)
L = 20log10 f + N log10 d + Pf (n) − 28 (1)
where f is the operating frequency, N is the distance power
loss coefficient, d is the distance between the receiver and
transmitter and Pf (n) is the floor penetration factor where n
is the number of floors between receiver and transmitter.
According to [18] the reflection of the signals for VLC is
negligible for bandwidths lower than 25 MHz. In this paper
Fig. 2. Two Modes of Hybrid AP.
978-1-5386-7171-9/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE
Serbia, Belgrade, November 20-21, 2018.
Fig. 3. System Model.
bandwidth is selected as 20 Mhz which automatically elimi-
nates the reflected signals and only LOS signals are consid-
ered. Also, for VLC, direct current biased optical orthogonal
frequency division multiplexing (DCO-OFDM) is used [19].
Since DCO-OFDM can only use half of the bandwidth for
transmission the following formula is used to determine data
rate for VLC :
RAP −U E = Blog2 (1 + SIN RAP −U E ) (2)
where SINR is
(κPopt HAP −U E )2
SIN RAP −U E = P (3)
ιN0 B + (κPopt HAP −else )2
where κ is the optical to electric conversion efficiency
rate for receivers, Popt is the average optical power, Ha−b
is channel gain between point a and point b, N0 is the
power spectral efficiency, ι is the conversion between average
electrical power of signals and optical power of signals [19].
V. E VALUATION AND R ESULTS
For evaluating the system model performance, 16 meters
to 16 meters room is considered as width and 2.3 meters of
height is chosen. Operating frequency is chosen as 30 GHz
for mmWave. Transmit powers of hybrid APs are chosen as
30 dBm for mmWave mode and 40 dBm for VLC. Baseband
bandwidth of VLC is chosen as 20 MHz and half-intensity
radiation angle is selected as 60 degree.
To evaluate channel dedication, user density in the room is
selected as 0.25 user/m2 and users are randomly distributed
in the room and follow random paths with a velocity of 0.2m/s.
The simulation results for dedicated channels for users at
random positions are shown in Figure 4.
For evaluating average data rates, the same velocity and
user distribution conditions are chosen but user densities are
changed. In 5 average data rates under only mmWave is used,
only VLC is used, randomly dedicated channels and offered
algorithm methods are presented for various user densities.
Average data rate is calculated as :
3

Fig. 4. Channels dedicated for different user positions.
Fig. 5. Average data rate per user with different number of users.
System Throughput
Average Data Rate per User = (4)
Number of Users
With the help of (1) and throughput calculation of mmWave
downlink [20] system throughput is calculated with simulation
results. It is assumed that SINR is changing simply with the
angle and distance of the UE.
Results show that the offered algorithm is simple yet ef-
fective however not smart enough. Improvement and mathe-
matical analysis of the algorithm and comparison with other
inter-technology channel dedication algorithms is left for the
future work.
VI. C ONCLUSION
In this paper an hybrid implementation of mmWave commu-
nication and VLC is given together with the previous works
in the literature. For indoor communication, VLC/mmWave
hybrid system is used and basic channel dedication algorithm
is offered and simulation results are presented. In the future
works, new handover techniques, smarter algorithm and com-
parison of the improved algorithm with other algorithms will
be implemented. Using blockage probabilities and realistic
indoor scenarios are other concepts will be used for the further
research.
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