Li-Fi

Li-Fi

Light Fidelity (Li-Fi) is a bidirectional, high-speed and fully networked wireless communication technology similar to Wi-Fi. The term was coined by Harald Haas and is a form of visible light communication and a subset of optical wireless communications (OWC) and could be a complement to RF communication (Wi-Fi or cellular networks), or even a replacement in contexts of data broadcasting.

It is wire and uv visible-light communication or infrared and near-ultraviolet instead of radio-frequency spectrum, part of optical wireless communications technology, which carries much more information and has been proposed as a solution to the RF-bandwidth limitations.

Technology details

This OWC technology uses light from light-emitting diodes (LEDs) as a medium to deliver networked, mobile, high-speed communication in a similar manner to Wi-Fi. The Li-Fi market is projected to have a compound annual growth rate of 82% from 2013 to 2018 and to be worth over $6 billion per year by 2018.

Visible light communications (VLC) works by switching the current to the LEDs off and on at a very high rate, too quick to be noticed by the human eye. Although Li-Fi LEDs would have to be kept on to transmit data, they could be dimmed to below human visibility while still emitting enough light to carry data. The light waves cannot penetrate walls which makes a much shorter range, though more secure from hacking, relative to Wi-Fi. Direct line of sight is not necessary for Li-Fi to transmit a signal; light reflected off the walls can achieve 70 Mbit/s.

Li-Fi has the advantage of being useful in electromagnetic sensitive areas such as in aircraft cabins, hospitals and nuclear power plants without causing electromagnetic interference. Both Wi-Fi and Li-Fi transmit data over the electromagnetic spectrum, but whereas Wi-Fi utilizes radio waves, Li-Fi uses visible light. While the US Federal Communications Commission has warned of a potential spectrum crisis because Wi-Fi is close to full capacity, Li-Fi has almost no limitations on capacity. The visible light spectrum is 10,000 times larger than the entire radio frequency spectrum. Researchers have reached data rates of over 10 Gbit/s, which is much faster than typical fast broadband in 2013. Li-Fi is expected to be ten times cheaper than Wi-Fi.^[6]Short range, low reliability and high installation costs are the potential downsides.

PureLiFi demonstrated the first commercially available Li-Fi system, the Li-1st, at the 2014 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Bg-Fi is a Li-Fi system consisting of an application for a mobile device, and a simple consumer product, like an IoT (Internet of Things) device, with color sensor, microcontroller, and embedded software. Light from the mobile device display communicates to the color sensor on the consumer product, which converts the light into digital information. Light emitting diodes enable the consumer product to communicate synchronously with the mobile device.

History

Harald Haas, coined the term "Li-Fi" at his TED Global Talk where he introduced the idea of "Wireless data from every light".He is Chairman of Mobile Communications at the University of Edinburgh and co-founder of pureLiFi.

The general term visible light communication (VLC), whose history dates back to the 1880s, includes any use of the visible light portion of the electromagnetic spectrum to transmit information. The D-Light project at Edinburgh's Institute for Digital Communications was funded from January 2010 to January 2012. Haas promoted this technology in his 2011 TED Global talk and helped start a company to market it. PureLiFi, formerly pureVLC, is an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) firm set up to commercialize Li-Fi products for integration with existing LED-lighting systems.

In October 2011, companies and industry groups formed the Li-Fi Consortium, to promote high-speed optical wireless systems and to overcome the limited amount of radio-based wireless spectrum available by exploiting a completely different part of the electromagnetic spectrum.

A number of companies offer uni-directional VLC products, which is not the same as Li-Fi - a term defined by the IEEE 802.15.7r1 standardization committee.

VLC technology was exhibited in 2012 using Li-Fi. By August 2013, data rates of over 1.6 Gbit/s were demonstrated over a single color LED. In September 2013, a press release said that Li-Fi, or VLC systems in general, do not require line-of-sight conditions. In October 2013, it was reported Chinese manufacturers were working on Li-Fi development kits.

In April 2014, the Russian company Stins Coman announced the development of a Li-Fi wireless local network called BeamCaster. Their current module transfers data at 1.25 gigabytes per second but they foresee boosting speeds up to 5 GB/second in the near future.^[31] In 2014 a new record was established by Sisoft (a Mexican company) that was able to transfer data at speeds of up to 10 Gbit/s across a light spectrum emitted by LED lamps.

Recent integrated CMOS optical receivers for Li-Fi systems are implemented with avalanche photodiodes (APDs) which has a low sensitivity.  In July 2015, IEEE has operated the APD in Geiger-mode as a single photon avalanche diode (SPAD) to increase the efficiency of energy-usage and makes the receiver more sensitive.  Also this operation could be performed as quantum-limited sensitivity that makes receivers detect weak signals from far distance. 

Standards

Like Wi-Fi, Li-Fi is wireless and uses similar 802.11 protocols; but it uses visible light communication (instead of radio frequency waves), which has much wider bandwidth.

One part of VLC is modeled after communication protocols established by the IEEE 802 workgroup. However, the IEEE 802.15.7 standard is out-of-date, it fails to consider the latest technological developments in the field of optical wireless communications, specifically with the introduction of optical orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (O-OFDM) modulation methods which have been optimized for data rates, multiple-access and energy efficiency. The introduction of O-OFDM means that a new drive for standardization of optical wireless communications is required.

Nonetheless, the IEEE 802.15.7 standard defines the physical layer (PHY) and media access control (MAC) layer. The standard is able to deliver enough data rates to transmit audio, video and multimedia services. It takes into account optical transmission mobility, its compatibility with artificial lighting present in infrastructures, and the interference which may be generated by ambient lighting. The MAC layer permits using the link with the other layers as with the TCP/IP protocol.

The standard defines three PHY layers with different rates:

• The PHY I was established for outdoor application and works from 11.67 kbit/s to 267.6 kbit/s.
• The PHY II layer permits reaching data rates from 1.25 Mbit/s to 96 Mbit/s.
• The PHY III is used for many emissions sources with a particular modulation method called color shift keying (CSK). PHY III can deliver rates from 12 Mbit/s to 96 Mbit/s.

The modulation formats recognized for PHY I and PHY II are on-off keying (OOK) and variable pulse position modulation (VPPM). The Manchester coding used for the PHY I and PHY II layers includes the clock inside the transmitted data by representing a logic 0 with an OOK symbol "01" and a logic 1 with an OOK symbol "10", all with a DC component. The DC component avoids light extinction in case of an extended run of logic 0's.

The first VLC smartphone prototype was presented at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas from January 7–10 in 2014. The phone uses SunPartner's Wysips CONNECT, a technique that converts light waves into usable energy, making the phone capable of receiving and decoding signals without drawing on its battery. A clear thin layer of crystal glass can be added to small screens like watches and smartphones that make them solar powered. Smartphones could gain 15% more battery life during a typical day. This first smartphones using this technology should arrive in 2015. This screen can also receive VLC signals as well as the smartphone camera.^[39] The cost of these screens per smartphone is between $2 and $3, much cheaper than most new technology.

Philips lighting company has developed a VLC system for shoppers at stores. They have to download an app on their smartphone and then their smartphone works with the LEDs in the store. The LEDs can pinpoint where they are located in the store and give them corresponding coupons and information based on which aisle they are on and what they are looking at.

Home & Building Automation

It is predicted that future home & building automation  will be highly dependent on the Li-Fi technology for being secure & fast. As the light cannot penetrate through walls hence the signal cannot be hacked.

Some Application

SecurityEdit

In contrast to radio frequency waves used by Wi-Fi, lights cannot penetrate through walls and doors. In a meeting or living room condition, with some prevention on transparent materials, like curtains on window, the access of a Li-Fi channel is constrained in that room.

Underwater ApplicationEdit

Most remotely underwater operated vehicles (ROVs) use cables to transmit command, but the length of cables then limits the area ROVs can detect. However, as light wave could travel through water, Li-Fi could be implemented on vehicles to receive and send back signals. 

HospitalEdit

Many treatments now involve multiple individuals, Li-Fi system could be a better system to transmit communication about the information of patients.  Besides providing a higher speed, light waves also have little effect on medical instruments and human bodies. 

VehiclesEdit

Vehicles could communicate with one another via front and back lights to increase road safety. Also street lamps and traffic signals could also provide information about current road situations.