Impact of Vehicle Type and Headlight Characteristics on Vehicular VLC Performance

We investigate the impact of various headlight modules and corresponding vehicle types on the performance of Vehicular VLC (V-VLC). V-VLC is currently considered as a quite promising communication technology that is complementary to existing wireless radio-based systems. Being a line of sight communication system, V-VLC is suggested mainly for shorter range communication causing little interference to concurrently performed transmissions. Given the very promising results in the literature, we study the impact of realistic headlight modules and vehicle types. Based on photometric data and experimental validation, we show that there is a substantial impact on the communication performance. The different light distribution patterns result in a varying light density and, therefore, packet delivery ratio. We see our models as an important step towards turning V-VLC into a reliable communication technology.