Most studies of reflecting intelligent surfaces (RISs)assisted visible light communication (VLC) systems have focused on the integration of RISs in the channel to combat the line-ofsight (LoS) blockage and to enhance the corresponding achievable data rate. Some recent efforts have investigated the integration of liquid crystal (LC)-RIS in the VLC receiver to also improve the corresponding achievable data rate. To jointly benefit from the previously mentioned appealing capabilities of the RIS technology in both the channel and the receiver, in this work, we propose a novel indoor VLC system that is jointly assisted by a mirror array-based RIS in the channel and an LC-based RIS aided-VLC receiver. To illustrate the performance of the proposed system, a rate maximization problem is formulated, solved, and evaluated. This maximization problem jointly optimizes the roll and yaw angles of the mirror array-based RIS as well as the refractive index of the LC-based RIS VLC receiver. Moreover, this maximization problem considers practical assumptions, such as the presence of non-users blockers in the LoS path between the transmitter-receiver pair and the user's random device orientation (i.e., the user's self-blockage). Due to the non-convexity of the formulated optimization problem, a low-complexity algorithm is utilized to get the global optimal solution. A multi-user scenario of the proposed scheme is also presented. Furthermore, the energy efficiency of the proposed system is also investigated. Simulation results are provided, confirming that the proposed system yields a noteworthy improvement in data rate and energy efficiency performances compared to several baseline schemes.Index Terms-Reflecting intelligent surface (RIS), visible light communication (VLC), liquid crystals (LCs), random receiver orientation, achievable rate, energy efficiency (EE), line of sight (LoS) blockage.
I. INTRODUCTIONT HE exponential increase in connected devices and the ongoing development of wireless applications are driving the need to explore alternative wireless communications options to radio frequency (RF) communications. Visible light communications (VLC) has emerged as a bandwidth-abundant, cost-effective, and secure communications technology. Subsequently, VLC is seen as a promising candidate for complementing RF communications in future wireless networks [1].In ordinary VLC systems, the line-of-sight (LoS) availability between the transmitter and the receiver is essential for