Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport The International Maritime Transport and Logistics Conference “ Marlog 10” Digitalization in Ports & Maritime Industry 13 – 15 June 2021 237 The Performance Evaluation of Smart Communication System for Ports across Different Seasons. Mahmoud Beshr (1) , Moustafa H. Aly (2) and Ivan Andonovic (3) (1) Assistant Professor, Arab Academy for Science and Technology and Maritime Transport Egypt, mbeshr@aast.edu (2) Professor, Arab Academy for Science and Technology and Maritime Transport, Alexandria, Egypt, mosaly@aast.edu (3) Professor, Strathclyde University, Glasgow, United Kingdom, i.andonovic@strath.ac.uk ABSTRACT Given the great development that industries are currently witnessing and the huge needs for ports to simplify the trading between countries, there is a huge demand on utilizing technologies to satisfy the communication needs for different stakeholders such as port authorities, shipping agencies and operators. One of these ways is Visible Light Communication (VLC) which is characterized by being a very high data rate, secure, and energy efficient network that uses high bandwidth pulsed light. The VLC provides a secure and efficient way to transmitting information in the existence of barriers such as Radio Frequency (RF) interference. Thus, the aim of this paper is to evaluate how sunlight irradiance can affect the VLC system performance. Furthermore, this paper uses modelling and simulation techniques to analyze the effect on the system Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) for Egypt and Germany. The performance evaluation considers different metrological conditions to simulate port’s context and operations over the year. Keywords: Visible Light Communication, Smart Ports, Sunlight Irradiance INTRODUCTION Utilization of communication technologies in ports operation can be considered as enabler for port system automations (smart ports) where the communication links (VLC system link) among container ship, ship- to-shore handling, carriers, yard storage and terminal management[1], [12], [13], [17]. The VLC system can provide fast, secure and cost-effective solutions by unitizing the LED blub light for communication among different stages at indoor and outdoor environments. Despite the fact that the VLC system performance is affected by sunlight intensity which differs according to the location under consideration, day of the year, time of the day and some meteorological conditions, more than 45% of sunlight spectrum locates in the visible light band, and thus, the VLC is still able to promise high speed connections and cost-effective solutions even in environments and areas that are vulnerable to electrometric wave radiations[17]. The VLC in cooperation with The Internet of Things (IoT)