Addressing Multi-User Interference in Vehicular Visible Light Communications: A Brief Survey and an Evaluation of Optical CDMA MAC Utilization in a Multi-Lane Scenario

Visible Light Communications (VLC) are developing as an omnipresent solution for inter-vehicle communications. Based on intensive research efforts, the performance of vehicular VLC systems has significantly improved in terms of noise resilience, communication range, and latencies. Nevertheless, in order to be ready for deployment in real applications, solutions for Medium Access Control (MAC) are also required. In this context, this article provides an intensive evaluation of several optical CDMA MAC solutions and of their efficiency in mitigating the effect of Multiple User Interference (MUI). Intensive simulation results showed that an adequately designed MAC layer can significantly reduce the effects of MUI, ensuring an adequate Packet Delivery Ratio (PDR). The simulation results showed that based on the use of optical CDMA codes, the PDR can be improved from values as low as 20% up to values between 93.2% and 100%. Consequently, the results provided in this article show the high potential of optical CDMA MAC solutions in vehicular VLC applications, reconfirm the high potential of the VLC technology in inter-vehicle communications, and emphasize the need to further develop MAC solutions designed for such applications.