LiFi - One step toward our dream of seamless data transfer.

We all have used Wi-Fi over some point of life. It has made life easier and provides the internet at a very high speed and also covers a good area to transmit the radio waves through a router or any transmitting tool.
So can anything be more efficient and provide faster speeds than Wi-Fi? Also the US Federal Communications Commission has warned of a potential spectrum crisis because Wi-Fi is close to full capacity. Then what is the next step? The answer is “Li-Fi”.

Li-Fi stands for Light Fidelity. Now, in our previous article we have seen how LIDAR works on the basis of light transmission. Li-Fi also works on the principle of light transmission.  Li-Fi is a bidirectional, high-speed and fully networked wireless communication technology and is a form of optical wireless communications (OWC) and uses the visible spectrum as well as ultraviolet and infrared radiation. The 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 works on the principle of Visible Light Communications (VLC). This means that it accommodates a photo-detector to receive light signals and a signal processing element to convert the data into 'stream-able' content.

It 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. The data is fed into the LED light bulb with signal processing technology which then sends the data embedded in the beam at high speeds to the photodiode. The tiny changes in the rapid dimming of LED bulbs is then converted by the receiver into electrical signal. The signal is then converted back into a binary data stream that we would recognise as web, video and audio applications that run on internet enables devices.
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. Also Li-Fi is expected to be 10 times cheaper than Wi-Fi. It is predicted that future home and building automation will be highly dependent on the Li-Fi technology for being secure and fast. As the light cannot penetrate through walls hence the signal cannot be hacked from a remote location.
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 224 Gbit/s which is much faster than typical fast broadband.
It has various other applications in fields like Security, Underwater Application, Hospital, Vehicles and Industrial Automation. It can be used in underwater ROV’s to send and receive data up-to a certain depth. In hospitals many treatments include multiple individuals, Li-Fi can be used to transmit the information about the patients. Besides providing higher speed the light waves have little effect on medical instruments and human bodies.
The vehicles could communicate with one another through the front and back lights to improve the road safety. Also street lights could give information related to the traffic and current road situation. In the industries there is a lot of data being transmitted, Li-Fi is capable to replace slip rings, sliding contacts and short cables, such as Industrial Ethernet. Due to real time capability of Li-Fi, which is often required for automation processes, it is also an alternative to common industrial Wireless LAN standards.
Also a variant called Bg-Fi consists of a system for a mobile device, and a simple consumer product like an IoT device with colour sensors, microcontroller and embedded software. Light from the mobile device display communicates to the colour 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.
There are many companies that are currently developing the Li-Fi including major companies like Philips, pureLIFI, OLEDComm, Zero.1 and so on. From this we can say that humans will always strive to progress no matter how far they reach. Thank You Guys for reading the blog.

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