Method for joint power allocation in a communication network

A method for joint power allocation and cell formation for an energy efficient (EE) visible light communication (VLC) network, comprising:

• grouping, by a control system, a plurality of user devices each connected to a photodiode photodetector into user centric clusters based on their distance to each other, wherein the visible light communication network includes a plurality of light-emitting diode (LED) access points (AP) having a half power light emission of from 10-30° and a plurality of photodiode photodetectors, wherein each photodiode photodetector is connected to a user device of one or more user centric clusters;
• forming, by the control system, cells of the light-emitting diode access points, by associating an access point to each user centric cluster, wherein associating is based on maximizing cell capacity within each cell and minimizing inter-cell interference from other cells;
• allocating power, by the control system, to the APs associated with each user centric cluster to maximize the energy efficiency (EE) of each user centric cluster;
• calculating, by the control system an inter-cell interference, an energy efficiency of each user centric cluster and a global energy efficiency of the visible light communication (VLC) network;
• and
• adjusting, by the control system, the operational status of each one of the plurality of APs based on the inter-cell interference and the global energy efficiency.