摘要

Modern hospitals are beginning to adopt E-HEALTH as efficient complements to the traditional healthcare services. To support the E-HEALTH services, a locatable, radiation-free and high-capacity communication system is urgently needed in hospitals. Power line communication (PLC) systems can use the ubiquitous power line network to power the light-emitting diode (LED) lamps while serving as the backbone network for the indoor visible light communication (VLC) systems naturally. In this article, a hybrid broadband power line and visible light communication system with orthogonal frequency division multiplexing modulation is proposed for the indoor hospital applications, which gives a brand-new solution to replace the conventional wireless communication systems in hospitals. A general-purpose system model is provided and some basic techniques to enhance system performance are also investigated. Moreover, a feasible demonstration which supports over 48 Mbps data rate within a bandwidth of 8 MHz is implemented in the laboratory.