Lifi the new Wifi
@Reyes907
Lifi the internet of tomorrow
June 28, 2017
Picture credit: https://themaclife.com/
Today I wanted to show my followers the next big thing in wireless communication networking Lifi.
Lifi is a bidirectional and high speed wireless communications system that uses LED nodes and light to send and stream bits of data much like Wifi. Lifi has the potential to stream data at 224 Gbit/s (gigabits per second). Let me explain why, visible light is a frequency of electromagnetic radiation just like radio frequency (what Wifi uses) but the visible light spectrum is 10,000 times larger than the whole radio spectrum. Lifi has many uses from hospitals to even underwater applications.
pic credit:http://www.activetelecoms.com/
How Lifi works
Lifi uses VLC (Visible Light Communication) in other words works by switching LED currencies on and off at a fast enough rate to be blind to the human eye. Keep in mind that Lifi LEDs would have to be kept on to transmit data but they can be dimmed down to below human visibility. Lifi uses two Physical layers or PHY layers.
The PHY 1 was established for outdoor application and works from 11.67 kbit/s to 267.6 kbit/s.
The PHY 2 layer permits reaching data rates from 1.25 Mbit/s to 96 Mbit/s.
The PHY 3 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 PHY format uses on-off keys (OOK)and variable pulse position modulation (VPPM). These keys work much like 1 and 0 coding 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.
Wifi vs Lifi
Like I explained before Lifi and Wifi stream bits of data over the electromagnetic spectrum Lifi using light and Wifi using radio frequency. Since Wifi uses radio frequencies it can cause electromagnetic interference whereas light does not interfere with high levels of electromagnetic radiation zones (such as plane cabins and hospitals) making it safe and efficient. Since Lifi uses light which does not penetrate walls your data can be more secured, as long as all transparent materials are covered (such as windows). Lifi uses similar 802.11 protocols as wifi but with visible light.
Now if you were as excited as I was about this you want to know where to get this revolutionary tech. There are a number of companies selling Lifi and for cheap look below.
VLNComm
OLEDComm
LightPointe
Basic6
Velmenni
If you liked this article and/or interested with Lifi please upvote 4 upvote and if you didn’t like it or I missed a point please reply. Thank you for reading
this technology is pretty neat. The only thing to solve is how to allow Li-Fi to work within a dark environment. Would you think that it is possible to use the light source off mobile phones to transmit Li-Fi signals and receive it back in the phone? I know it sounds absurd but its a thought I'm curious about.