Flexible resource allocation scheme for link switching support in visible light communication networks

With the development of wireless technologies and applications, guaranteeing Quality of Service (QoS) for heterogeneous traffic calls is an important problem. In visible light communication (VLC) networks, the Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol supports the exclusive use of wireless channels through guaranteed time slots (GTSs). In this paper, a flexible resource allocation scheme is proposed to support link switching calls in VLC networks. Based on minimum QoS requirements of traffic, our proposed scheme can accommodate link switching calls, which use GTS allocation, even though the remaining time slots are not enough to be allocated to these ones. A queuing model is used to analyze our proposed scheme.