Scientists
have been working on different ways to boost the wireless data transfers. One
of the new technology that has been in the works for years is the Li-Fi, a new
wireless technology that is capable of transferring high-speed data via visible
light communication. While the technology has been tested already, researchers
at Estonian hardware start-up Velmenni now successfully conducted a commercial
test of the technology. Researchers managed to achieve transmission speeds of 1
gigabits per second, which is about 100 times faster than the average Wi-Fi
speeds.
“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.”
Researchers
have also developed smart LED bulbs, called
Jugnu, that will be used to transfer data
through the visible lights. Also, they are working on an Android app that would
be used for controlling the smart LED bulbs.
“A GUI was developed in
MATLAB and a receiver circuit was made using Arduino and photodiodes. We
successfully transferred a text file using this method. We only had to keep
your micro-control board in front of the laptop screen (GUI) and the data was
transferred wirelessly using visible light communication,” researchers said in their report.
What is
Visible Light Communication
Li-Fi
uses visible light communications or infrared or near ultraviolet instead of
radio frequency waves to transfer data at faster speed. The technology uses
visible light between 400 and 800 THz (780–375 nm). It can be emitted using by switching bulbs on and off,
since it happens in nanoseconds it doesn’t get noticed by the human eye.
It works
basically like an incredibly advanced form of Morse code - just like switching
a torch on and off according to a certain pattern can relay a secret message,
flicking an LED on and off at extreme speeds can be used to write and transmit
things in binary code.
The trials come less
than nine months after researchers at Oxford University achieved bi-directional
speeds of 224 Gbps in a lab environment.
To put that in context,
a speed of 224 Gbps would allow users to download eighteen 1.5GB movies in a
single second.
Li-Fi
doesn’t intend to replace Wi-Fi
in the near future, but comes with own set of advantages, especially the
security. Since light waves cannot penetrate walls, the technology becomes much
more impactful for shorter range, preventing problems such as hacking that
commonly hurt Wi-Fi networks.
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