New high-data-rate multimedia services and applications are evolving continuously and exponentially increasing the demand for wireless capacity of fifth-generation (5G) and beyond. The existing radio frequency (RF) communication spectrum is insufficient to meet the demands of future high-datarate 5G services. Optical wireless communication (OWC), which uses an ultra-wide range of unregulated spectrum, has emerged as a promising solution to overcome the RF spectrum crisis. It has attracted growing research interest worldwide in the last decade for indoor and outdoor applications. OWC offloads huge data traffic applications from RF networks. A 100 Gb/s data rate has already been demonstrated through OWC. It offers services indoors as well as outdoors, and communication distances range from several nm to more than 10000 km. This paper provides a technology overview and a review on optical wireless technologies, such as visible light communication, light fidelity, optical camera communication, free space optical communication, and light detection and ranging. We survey the key technologies for understanding OWC and present state-of-the-art criteria in aspects, such as classification, spectrum use, architecture, and applications. The key contribution of this paper is to clarify the differences among different promising optical wireless technologies and between these technologies and their corresponding similar existing RF technologies.

Optical wireless communication (OWC) is an excellent complementary solution to its radio frequency (RF) counterpart. OWC technologies have been demonstrated to be able to support high traffic generated by massive connectivity of the Internet of Things (IoT) and upcoming 5th generation (5G) wireless communication systems. As the characteristics of OWC and RF are complementary, a combined application is regarded as a promising approach to support 5G and beyond communication systems. Hybrid RF/optical and optical/optical wireless systems offer an excellent solution for recovering the limitations of individual systems as well as for providing positive features of each of the technologies. An RF/optical wireless hybrid system consists both RF and optical-based wireless technologies, whereas an optical/optical wireless hybrid system consists two or more types of OWC technologies. The co-deployment of wireless systems can improve system performance in terms of throughput, reliability, and energy efficiency of individual networks. This study surveys the state of the art and key research directions regarding optical wireless hybrid networks, being the first extensive survey dedicated to this topic. We provide a technology overview of existing literature on optical wireless hybrid networks, such as RF/optical and optical/optical systems. We consider the RF-based macrocell, small cell, wireless fidelity, and Bluetooth, as well as optical-based visible light communication, light fidelity, optical camera communication, and free-space optical communication technologies for different combinations of hybrid systems. Moreover, we consider underwater acoustic communication for hybrid acoustic/optical systems. The opportunities brought by hybrid systems are presented in detail. We outline important challenges that need to be addressed for successful deployment of optical wireless hybrid network systems for 5G and IoT paradigms.

This paper investigates optical camera communication (OCC) technologies, targeting new spectrum, multiple-input-multiple-output diversity, transmission access, and novel architectures with augmented reality user experience for the extended 5G wireless network. It provides the current OCC research status and trend pertaining to these technologies, especially an inside view on the revision of IEEE 802.15.7-2011 known as the IEEE 802.15.7m (TG7m) Optical Wireless Communication Task Group. Such standardization activities have a major impact on the development of OCC technologies. In addition, it provides a detailed review of the related literature. Herein, OCC technologies are classified into five categories to elucidate their operations and technical characteristics. Furthermore, a concise performance analysis, numerical simulations, and some comparison of the results obtained for associated systems are presented, and the future directions of research and development are discussed.

The evolution of the Internet of vehicles and growing use of mobile devices has created a demand for new wireless communication technologies. Optical camera communication, which uses light-emitting diodes as transmitters and cameras as receivers, has emerged as a promising alternative. Since light-emitting diodes and cameras are already exploring in traffic lights, vehicles, and public lightings, optical camera communication has the potential to intelligently handle transport systems. Although other technologies have been proposed or developed in both academia and industry, they are not yet mature enough to uphold the huge requirements of the Internet of vehicles. This study introduces a new intelligent Internet of vehicles system based on optical camera communication combined with convolutional neural networks. Optical camera communication is a promising candidate for maintaining interference-free and more robust communication, for supporting the Internet of vehicles. Convolutional neural network is introduced for precise detection and recognition of light-emitting diode patterns at long distances and in bad weather conditions. We propose an algorithm to detect the interested light-emitting diode signals (i.e. regions-of-interest), measure the distance using a stereo-vision technique to find out the desired targets, and simulate our proposed scheme using a MATLAB Toolbox. Thus, our system will provide great advantages for next-generation transportation systems.

Currently, various radio frequency (RF) technologies are used to transfer medical data in healthcare applications. The electromagnetic interference caused by RF can critically affect the performance of medical devices. The main goal of this paper, thus, is to provide reliable and low-latency fifth-generation (5G) electronic health (eHealth) solutions for monitoring patients at home, hospitals, ambulances, intensive care units, and outdoors. This monitoring is based on optical camera communication (OCC). In our proposal, the OCC system is used to receive the monitored data from wearable sensors/patches. OCC systems are connected to 5G access networks or wired networks to be linked with the core network. The proposed system is able to provide fast and secure connectivity for simultaneous monitoring of multiple patients. The monitored information is forwarded to hospitals, medical servers, doctors, cloud, and mobile systems for remote monitoring purposes. In this study, we provide a novel technical solution for monitoring patients remotely. A robot system with OCC is also proposed to monitor the health data of multiple patients in hospital. We provide several eHealth solution scenarios for better understanding of the proposed eHealth architecture.