Li-Fi, as coined by Prof. Harald Haas during his TED Global talk, is bidirectional, high speed and fully networked wireless communications, like Wi-Fi, using visible light. Li-Fi is a subset of visible light communications (VLC) and can be a complement to RF communication (Wi-Fi or Cellular network), or a replacement in contexts of data broadcasting. It is wireless and uses visible light communication (instead of radio frequency waves), part of Optical wireless communications technology, which carries much more information, and has been proposed as a solution to the RF-bandwidth limitations. A complete solution includes an industry led standardization process. It is a 5G visible light communication system that uses light from light-emitting diodes (LEDs) as a medium to deliver networked, mobile, high-speed communication in a similar manner as Wi-Fi. Li-Fi could lead to the Internet of Things, which is everything electronic being connected to the internet, with the LED lights on the electronics being used as Li-Fi internet access points. Visible light communications (VLC) works by switching bulbs on and off within nanoseconds, which is too quickly to be noticed by the human eye. Although Li-Fi bulbs would have to be kept on to transmit data, the bulbs could be dimmed to the point that they were not visible to humans and yet still functional. 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 isnt 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[citation needed] without causing electromagnetic interference. Both Wi-Fi and Li-Fi transmit data over the electromagnetic spectrum, but whereas Wi-Fi utilises 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 more than 250 times faster than superfast broadband. Li-Fi is expected to be ten times cheaper than Wi-Fi. Short range, low reliability and high installation costs are the potential downsides.
Posted on: Sun, 07 Dec 2014 02:47:03 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015