Systems and methods for visible light communications personal area network and wireless local area network interworking

A controller, comprising:

• a network interface communicatively coupled to a wireless access point and one Visible Light Communications (VLC) access point;
• a processor;
• and
• memory storing instructions that, when executed, cause the processor to:
• receive data traffic from both the wireless access point and the VLC access point;
• uniquely identify a device using both the wireless access point and the VLC access point as a same device using an addressing scheme associated with a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) domain and a VLC domain, wherein the device is configured to operate in both the WLAN domain and the VLC domain;
• and
• provide data traffic to the device via one of the wireless access point and the VLC access point based on a plurality of factors.

A network, comprising:

• a wireless access point communicatively coupled to a device via a wireless connection;
• a visible light access point communicatively coupled to the device via a light connection;
• and
• a controller communicatively coupled to the wireless access point and the visible light access point;
• wherein the controller is configured to uniquely identify the device as a same device operating on either the wireless access point or the visible light access point based on an addressing scheme;
• and
• wherein the device is configured to utilize both the wireless access point and the visible light access point concurrently for data traffic providing traffic to the visible light access point using the addressing scheme that incorporates an address for the wireless connection therein.