Smart LED Lighting, LiFi, Optical Alternative of Wi-Fi

Li-Fi (Light Fidelity) is a new optical wireless version alternative of conventional wi-fi, using a LED light bulb to carry and emit communication streams, say, transmission of data through illumination.

Although the idea of transmitting data via the visible light spectrum is not new, the development of super high-speed transmission using off-the-shelf LED light bulbs initially came from research carried out by Professor Harald Haas, Professor of Mobile Communications, School of Engineering / Institute of Digital Communications, University of Edinburgh.

His research created the technology that can transfer vast quantities of information across a spectrum 10,000 times wider than the radio frequency spectrum.

Turning a light source – a simple household LED light bulb from LE for example – into a localised data communications centre is a potentially viable alternative. Where we have an LED light source configured with VLC’s own IP, we have a powerful method of carrying data, not just in a single data stream, but thousands of data streams in parallel at high speed. Moreover, it can be used in intrinsically safe environments – petrochemical plants, hospitals, aircraft, etc where the use of radio frequency Wi-Fi can have restrictions. Our research has shown that the long term potential for Li-Fi over Wi-Fi is one which cannot be ignored.