  Advancements in lighting systems and photodetectors provide opportunities to
develop viable alternatives to conventional communication and sensing
technologies, especially in the vehicular industry. Most of the studies that
propose visible light in communication or sensing adopt the Lambertian
propagation (path loss) model. This model requires knowledge and utilization of
multiple parameters to calculate the path loss such as photodetector area,
incidence angle, and distance between transmitter and receiver. In this letter,
a simplified path loss model that is mathematically more tractable is proposed
for vehicular sensing and communication systems that use visible light
technology. Field measurement campaigns are conducted to validate the
performance and limits of the developed path loss model. The proposed model is
used to fit the data collected at different ranges of incident angles and
distances. Further, this model can be used for designing visible light-based
communication and sensing systems to minimize the complexity of the Lambertian
path loss model, particularly for cases where the incident angle between
transmitter and receiver is relatively small.
