Sustainability-driven resource allocation for SLIPT-assisted hybrid VLC/RF IoT systems

This letter investigates the resource allocation optimization for indoor hybrid visible light communication (VLC)/radio frequency(RF) systems, where multiple Internet of Things (IoT) devices employ simultaneous lightwave information and power transfer (SLIPT) to work sustainably without any external power supply. IoT devices receive data and power themselves based on SLIPT via downlink while sending back data based on the harvested energy through the RF uplink. Given the sustainability-driven goal, an optimization problem to maximize the minimum data collection rate is formulated across all IoT devices within the given time period, resulting in a mixed integer nonlinear problem that is challenging to solve. To this end, an iterative algorithm of timeslot assignment and power allocation is proposed. Simulation results verify the superiority of the proposed scheme in data collection rate.