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| Li-Fi |
Move over Wi-Fi. Welcome Li-Fi, a super-fast alternative to
WiFi. Moving beyond the research lab, Li-Fi has entered into a real-world test
and is expected to change everything about the way we use the Internet.
Li-Fi is a wireless technology that transmits high-speed data
using Visible Light Communication (VLC). Earlier this year, the lab testing saw
scientists achieve speeds of 224 gigabits per second in the lab using Li-Fi.
Estonian startup Velmenni has begun to offer the Li-Fi
technology in a commercial setting. The company is using LiFi to send data
at up to 1Gbps – more than 100x faster than current WiFi technologies. To put
this in real-world terms, you could expect to download a high-definition film
in just a few seconds.
“We are doing a few pilot projects within different
industries where we can utilise the VLC (visible light communication)
technology,” Deepak Solanki, CEO of Estonian tech company, Velmenni, told
IBTimes UK.
“Currently we have designed a smart lighting solution for an
industrial environment where the data communication is done through light. We
are also doing a pilot project with a private client where we are setting up a
Li-Fi network to access the Internet in their office space.”
Back in 2011, Li-Fi was invented by Harald Haas, a professor
of mobile communications at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, who for
the first time had illustrated that he could transmit far more data by
flickering the light from a single LED. According to Haas’s research, Li-Fi can
achieve data density 1,000 times greater than Wi-Fi, because Li-Fi signals are
contained in a small area, as opposed to the more diffuse radio signals.
The technology uses VLC, a medium that uses visible light
between 400 and 800 terahertz (THz). Basically, it works like this – flicking
of an LED on and off at extreme speeds that are imperceptible to the naked eye
can be used to write and transmit things in binary code.
The main benefit of Li-Fi over Wi-Fi, is the increased
privacy and security which it offers. Data is sent at high-speeds using VLC
cannot pass through walls and is therefore, less at risk from being intercepted
as well as from suffering with interference from other devices.
Li-Fi will most likely not completely replace Wi-Fi in the
coming decades pointed Anthony Cuthbertson to IBTimes UK, but the two
technologies could together be used to attain more safe and efficient networks.
Using light bulbs around the home or workplace, Li-Fi could
deliver high-speed data transmission for internet access or IoT (Internet of
Things) deployments. The biggest challenge for Velmenni, and others looking to
harness Li-Fi technology, is finding ways to retrofit existing devices with the
new technology in order to prevent having to create a whole new infrastructure.
Research teams around the world are working on just that.
Haas and his team have launched PureLiFi, a company that offers a plug-and-play
application for secure wireless Internet access with a capacity of 11.5 MB per
second, which is comparable to first generation Wi-Fi. Haas also sees Li-Fi as
a way to bring internet to remote locations, using hilltop transmitters and
rooftop solar panels. LED streetlights could even be used to form a network of
outdoor Li-Fi, making it possible to stay connected when walking around the
city.
Further, French tech company Oledcomm is in the process of
installing its own Li-Fi technology in local hospitals. Also, Chinese
researchers have developed a basic Li-Fi prototype as well, powering
several laptops with one LED bulb. The Fraunhofer Institute, a German research
organization, has been working on Li-Fi hotspot prototypes as well.
Even NASA recently announced plans to study Li-Fi’s potential uses in
space travel.
If applications like these and the Velmenni trial in Estonia
prove successful, we could achieve the dream outlined by Haas in his 2011 TED
talk below – everyone gaining access to the Internet via LED light bulbs in
their home.
“All we need to do is fit a small microchip to every
potential illumination device and this would then combine two basic
functionalities: illumination and wireless data transmission,” Haas said. “In
the future we will not only have 14 billion light bulbs, we may have 14 billion
Li-Fis deployed worldwide for a cleaner, greener, and even brighter future.”
“The incandescent lightbulb delivers illumination,” Haas
says. “In 20 years, the [LED] lightbulb will deliver hundreds of
applications”.
Originally given by "Pankaj Thakur"
"Stay Tuned to TECHurosity for more updates and BE CURIOUS"
