ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Commun. Netw.
Sec. Optical Communications and Networks
Pointing Error Evaluation in IRS-Assisted VLC Systems for Indoor Hospital Environments: A Comparative Analytical Study
- BS
Babak Sadeghi 1
- SM
Seyed Mohammad Sajad Sadough 1
- KA
Khadijeh Ali Mahmoodi 2
1. Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran
2. Universite de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, Versailles, France
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Abstract
Visible light communication (VLC) has emerged as a promising technology for indoor wireless networks that offers immunity to electromagnetic interference and enhanced physical-layer security, properties particularly valuable in hospital and clinical environments. Intelligent reflecting surfaces (IRS) have recently been proposed to extend VLC coverage by enabling non-line-of-sight (NLoS) transmission when direct optical paths are blocked by medical staff, equipment, or movable infrastructure. However, the cascaded transmitter–IRS–receiver geometry introduces compounded misalignment effects that are not present in conventional line-of-sight (LoS) links, and their analytical characterization remains an open problem. This paper presents a unified analytical framework for quantifying and comparing pointing errors on conventional LoS and IRS-assisted VLC links in indoor hospital environments. Closed-form expressions are derived for the composite pointing-error variance, and the radial displacement is modeled using a Rayleigh distribution. Analytical expressions for the average received power, electrical signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and outage probability are then obtained for both link configurations. The results show that IRS deployment results in an SNR degradation of approximately 3 to 5 dB under practical conditions, and the probability of outage increases significantly with the variance of the pointing-error, underscoring the importance of precise beam alignment and robust IRS control for reliable hospital wireless connectivity.
Summary
Keywords
Channel modeling, Intelligent reflecting surface (IRS), Outage probability, Pointing error, Visible light communication (VLC)
Received
14 June 2026
Accepted
20 July 2026
Copyright
© 2026 Sadeghi, Sadough and Ali Mahmoodi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Seyed Mohammad Sajad Sadough
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