Implementing an IEEE802.15.7 physical layer simulation model with OMNET++

Abstract

Visible Light Communications (VLC) uses visible light spectrum as transmission medium for communications. VLC has gained recent interest as a favorable complement to radio frequency (RF) wireless communications systems due to the ubiquity and wide variety of applications. In 2011 the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers published the standard IEEE 802.15.7 [1]. Nowadays, simulation tools are widely used to study, understand and achieve better network performance. This paper describes the design and implementation of a physical layer model based in IEEE802.15.7 standard using OMNET++ simulation tool [2]. This software is a popular tool for building networks' and modeling their behavior. The main goal of this paper is to introduce the developing and implementing of a software module to simulate the Physical Layer (PHY) based on IEEE802.15.7. The developed module, called simVLC will let researchers and students to study and simulate different scenarios in this standard.