Li-Fi Conference 2021 - Recap Part 2 - Building the LiFi Ecosystem — LiFi

Li-Fi Conference 2021 - Recap Part 2 - Building the LiFi Ecosystem

Li-Fi Conference 2021 - Recap Part 2 - Building the LiFi Ecosystem

Li-Fi Conference 2021

In our previous article series about the ONLINE Li-Fi Conference 2021, we discussed The Light Communications Alliance (LCA) and its purpose. The conference was organised by the Jakajima, the global High Tech Conference organiser, and the Light Communications Alliance.

Jakajima, Matchmaker for Innovators in the high tech industry, organises many events, ranging from LiFi Technology industry trends, 3D Printing to the Internet of Things, from Unmanned Cargo Aircraft to Health Tech, from 4D Printing to Photonics and from Vertical Farming to Sustainable Materials.

The online Li-Fi Conference included live presentations from researchers, executives and industry specialists from pureLiFi, Nokia, Signify, Orange, Radiocommunications Agency Netherlands, Velmenni, OLEDCOMM, HomeGrid Forum and Weidmüller Deutschland.

In the first part of the conference, Nikola Serafimovski, Co-Chairman of Light Communications Alliance and Musa Unmehopa, Head of Ecosystems and Strategic Alliances for LiFi at Signify shared their views on LiFi and the LiFi ecosystem.

In this article recap series, we will talk about the presentation on building the LiFi ecosystem delivered by Musa Unmehopa. Before this, we will talk briefly about Signify.

Signify

Signify is the new brand name of Philips Lighting. The name change occurred in March 2018 to represent the transformation from an analogue lighting company into digital lighting and Internet of Things (IoT) company. Signify is the world leader in lighting for professionals, consumers and lighting for the Internet of Things. The company provides lighting solutions for professional segments such as automotive, healthcare, horticulture, office, outdoor, phototherapy, petrol stations, solar, purification, schools, fashion, cinema, and more. These lighting solutions include indoor and outdoor luminaires, lamps, electronics, lighting controls, lighting control software, IoT systems and platforms.

Signify has also other brands under its belt such as Philips, Interact, Modular Lighting Instruments, Luceplan, Color Kinetics, ILTI Luce and Philips Hue.

“Standardization is the cornerstone for LiFi interoperability, which is an essential condition for lowering barriers to adoption, encouraging competition and innovation, and building consumer confidence,” said Musa Unmehopa, Head of Ecosystems and Strategic Alliances at Signify. “We join HomeGrid Forum to grow the LiFi ecosystem in which we collectively create and build a global market where we can all compete effectively and serve consumers.”

Dr Leonard Dauphinee, Vice President and CTO of Broadband Products at MaxLinear added: “Signify’s Trulifi product series is embedding MaxLinear’s G.hn chipsets to modulate the light waves to transmit data and to provide backhaul over existing wires, such as powerline. By leveraging their lighting infrastructure, Signify customers get the best of both worlds: a great lighting experience and a high-speed wireless G.hn-encoded LiFi connection with a reliable G.hn wired backbone.”

Building The LiFi Ecosystem by Musa Unmehopa

Musa Unmehopa, Head of Ecosystems and Strategic Alliances for LiFi at Signify, was the second presenter at the online Li-Fi Conference 2021. He presented in great detail the importance of building a healthy LiFi ecosystem.

Mr Musa is the Head of Ecosystems and Strategic Alliances for LiFi, at Signify. Prior to joining Philips Lighting in 2013, he worked for Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies, and Alcatel-Lucent. Musa has held senior leadership roles in various standards bodies, trade organizations and industry consortia, including chairman of the Technical Plenary of the Open Mobile Alliance, vice-chairman of the Board of the Zigbee Alliance, and Secretary-General of the Zhaga Consortium. He also served on the boards of The Connected Lighting Alliance, the Emerge Alliance, and the Parlay Group, and is an advisor to several technology start-ups. Author of two technology books, Musa has been an invited keynote speaker and panellist at various industry events. His publications include numerous papers in technical journals and conferences. He holds two patents. Musa received a BSc. and MSc. degree in computer science from Twente University and MBA degrees from TIAS Business School and University of Bradford School of Management.

Below are some points discussed about the LiFi ecosystem

Signify is the world leader in lighting

Musa Unmehopa started his presentation by saying the following:

“Well, good day everybody, it's great to be with you and all and have the opportunity to share my view on the LiFi ecosystem. And I'll be talking about ecosystems. And throughout my talk, I'll explain what exactly I mean by that. Before I dive in, just a quick word on my background. Thank you, Peter, for the kind introduction, I work for Signify, which is the number one lighting company in the world, we've been around for decades or even a century. You may have known us as Philips Lighting in the past. We've been the number one in the lighting industry. you can only maintain that over so many years if you have a strong focus on innovation, which is one of our focal points. And that's also why we got engaged with LiFi. Because we strongly believe that this is going to take the lightning industry to new heights, and it's going to be very beneficial to consumers and markets across multiple segments. Now a quick definition and Nicola already shared the taxonomy that the LCA is advocating, with LiFi. What I mean is full-duplex broadband wireless internet using modulated lights. So keep that in mind as we talk about and go through some of the talking points.”.

The Future Potential of LiFi is here today

Musa Unmehopa then stated the following:

“And the main point that I would like to leave you with at the end of my talk, is that there's a lot of future potentials here with LiFi, this, there's a strong body of research and academia, who have been pushing the envelope, and growing the capability of the technology over a long period of time, and continue to do so. And this is really important, very exciting. However, if your aim is to bring commercial products to market, there's no need to wait and the time is now we are ready. And what we need to do to take the next step and convince the world that LiFi is fantastic, is really to grow the ecosystem. And I understand ecosystem is a bit of a loaded term. So I'll talk more about what exactly I mean by that. And also, you know how we want to solicit your help and how you can contribute in building that ecosystem.”

Integrating LiFi access point in lighting fixtures

“So just showing you a few examples of why we believe that the industry is forming around LiFi. Now what we're seeing is a number of lighting companies already starting to integrate LiFi access points in lighting fixtures. We have our colleagues from OLEDCOMM who integrated life in a desk lamp. We have our colleagues from Lucibel who have integrated LiFi into in a downlights and my own company Signify integrating LiFi into office troffers. There's many ways to do this, you can integrate it into the light source or into the fixture, or use some modular approach with connector slots, many ways to go about what we see several examples of the lightning infrastructure being extended with this communication capability for LiFi.”, said Musa Unmehopa.

External LiFi end points

“We also see endpoints being introduced into the market. And so it's very common practice with new communication technologies. They start out as external devices that you connect to your communication equipment like a laptop or a tablet or a phone. So, we see many modalities of LiFi dongles being available on the markets. But the industry is progressing, as we learn more and make advances in miniaturisation and thermal management and power management. We see the components becoming smaller, and becoming more suitable for integration into end-user devices.”

LiFi integrated in end-user devices

“There are various routes that you can follow. On the top left, we see an example of the integration of an optical antenna in the protective case of a mobile phone. On the top right, we see the integration of life into ruggedized devices such as tablets, and then in the right bottom, we see the integration of LiFi into AR and VR headsets and making use of the low latency properties of LiFi communication”.

LiFi is maturing

“But it's not only the products that are evolving, also the market and the business processes are maturing. And evidence of that is really the announcements that we've seen recently in the industry of uptake and deployment. Commercial deployments of LiFi. In the last couple of months, we've seen announcements of LiFi deployment in operational and tactical environments and deployments in the Military. On ground forces, but also in air forces, and we see the integration of LiFi communication in the interior cabins of aircraft, with the recent announcements of Airbus and McLaren and Signify. And not only is this a testament to the maturity of the technology but like I indicated also to the maturity of the business processes because these are very stringent environments, very serious industries. They place a lot of requirements on the supply chain, on the quality controlling your manufacturing processes, etc… So it's a clear sign of the industry maturing. And there are many, many more”.

An ecosystem for lifi products

“I apologise if I did not include your favourite product or your favourite company, shoot me an email, and I'll include it in the next iteration of my slide deck. But the point that I'd like to make here is that an industry is forming around LiFi. There are manufacturers and providers of different types of complementary products that together built, start building this ecosystem. So the point that I'm making, and I'm going to use an analogy here, bear with me, please, I believe, and I would position that all the basic elements of the industry are in place, we have a ball, we have some water, we have a fish. And so what does it take today to elevate to the next level. In my view, we don't need a better fish, the fish is good enough, if you will bear with my analogy”.

“All the piece parts are in place. Rather, what we need right now in order to build this is to grow the ecosystem. So we want a thriving, bustling environment where everybody can succeed, where multiple species can coexist and be successful together. That's really the analogy that I want to put forward to you. So again, it's not about making better communication or becoming faster or using more capable LCDs, or lasers, or what have you. All that stuff is there in sufficient quantities at sufficient quality and sufficient performance levels. And what we need now really, is to build the ecosystem. So if I depart the oceanic analogy a little bit and bring it back to business terms, what I mean by ecosystem is a conglomerate of economic actors that mutually rely on each other, both to survive, as well as to thrive. And the purpose here really is to collectively create and build a global market within which we can all compete effectively and serve our consumers. We're looking to utilise this ecosystem to connect and to share, to grow and transform together. And if done right, we strongly believe that the ecosystem can act as an amplifier to individual success and serve as a catalyst to collective success, so that we can all grow. And it's also a great tool to ensure global coverage in our global world, while at the same time half local concentration. So, an ecosystem is that is the key concept here”.


Light Communications Alliance

“Now, how do you build such an ecosystem? There are various ways of doing that. One of which is by building strong industry alliances. And right before the start of my presentation, Nicola gave a fantastic introduction of the light communications Alliance, which is really the first industry Alliance or consortium that brings together like-minded companies, large and small, as well as academia and Institutes, to drive forward our common message, which is to educate the world about the benefits and the use cases of light communication. And many companies have already joined. These include the typical telecommunication companies, and service providers, but also lighting companies are very dedicated LiFi companies and many more. And really, this is my call out to all of you, please consider joining, we would welcome you with open arms. We want to build an inclusive ecosystem. So we welcome you aboard. And welcome your contribution as we drive forward to realise our collective mission”. 

Standardization ITU-T SG15/Q18

“Now, industry alliances are one mechanism to build an ecosystem.  There is more, for example, a standardisation. And I want to highlight two initiatives here, starting with ITU they started out with, standards for Wired home networking, and extended that to become suitable for light communication and wireless as well. This is a mature technology it's already available, it's approved and published and silicon is can be obtained on the open market. And what the light communications industry has done is to take this assisting technology and add to it features and support for light communication such as interference management and inter-domain handover. Some security mechanisms that are common across multiple networking technologies, as well as the ability to perform secure handovers. While the technology is available today, there are still activities ongoing to extend it and improve it even further. So the next generation of G.vlc is currently being considered. And we're looking to extend the technology with incremental feature upgrades and performance improvements. And to really expand the set of use cases that can be addressed. But we also look further into the future initiatives like G. fin for fibre to the room.  As a lighting industry, our interest really is to make sure that the existing lighting infrastructure can be leveraged for future networking technology that makes use of fibre while at the same time also enabling new and more innovative Smart Lighting Control use cases that make use of such new infrastructure”.

Standardization IEEE 802.11

“There are more extensive initiatives and the one I'd like to highlight next is IEEE 802.11. This really started out with the motivation to integrate Wi-Fi 6 and some of the advances in ITU by adding support for optical antennas definition of the centre frequency, but also thinking ahead towards implementation and adding support for low-cost circuitry and make sure that the full spectrum can be used to benefit to make sure, make use of the benefits of LED. And quite important here is to maximise also the reuse of commercially available Wi-Fi chips. This is work in progress, the publication and approval is expected in a year from now more or less in the 2020 to 2023 timeframe. It is work in progress so you can join and contribute. What we've really done is to take the 2020 amendment of 802.11 and the A x standard starting points and make sure that the activity really supports LiFi as a future growth path for .11 wireless local area networks and allow implementations to make use of the cheap available Wi-Fi chipsets. We're also looking even though it's a work in progress, we are keeping an eye to the future. In .11 BE or Wi-Fi 7, some interesting features are currently being defined, which we believe are very well suited for light communication as well. And a multi-link operation is one good example of that” said Musa Unmehopa.

A strong interoperability certification program is needed


”But standardisation alone is not enough. It allows you to build a compliant implementation. But what consumers really want is to have interoperable implementations such that they can buy their components and products and equipment from their favourite manufacturer and not be reliant on a single supplier. So, interoperability certification programmes are a necessity here. Fortunately, the industry has already made some progress here. And the previous two slides I indicated that baseband standardisation is already underway and certification programmes for those baseband technologies are also already in place. So, the HomeGrid Forum is looking after the certification of G.hn from ITU. And the Wi-Fi Alliance is looking after a baseband certification from 802.11 in IEEE and that's going to help us tremendously but more is needed because the focus of those existing certification programmes is on the basement committee.  On the protocol engines, they are not yet targeting the optical aspects of a LiFi system. So, that needs to be extended and within Signify, we're developing ideas on how to do that.  You are very much welcome for your contribution in this space as well. So for each of these technologies, we will need optical antenna certification. Preferably, of course, the optical antenna is independent or agnostic of the basement technology used. But that's how at least, we view how this should be developed”.


We are building the ecosystem

“So what I've hoped to clarify in the past few slides is that the start of an ecosystem is already forming. And there are lighting companies and device manufacturers, network equipment manufacturers, chip providers, standards, organisations, industry alliances, etc... So that's already very good and very strong. And we're extending this further because that ecosystem really needs to support all the features and requirements that need to be in place. Think, for example, about test houses and certification authorities. Think about regulators and policymakers. Think about installers and building managers where the systems need to be deployed. And the ecosystem needs to consist and include all of these players. Using the liaison programme of the Light Communications Alliance, we are reaching out to these communities, but we could use more help. So if you are active in any of these communities, or know of organisations that can contribute to the mission of building the LiFi ecosystem, please reach out and we're happy to talk to you”.

Call to Action: Be part of the LiFi future today

“So nearing the end of my presentation, I want to leave you with a call to action. Please be part of the LiFi future today help us build this ecosystem, the ecosystem is already starting. And you can contribute and help us extend that even further. And there are several ways you can do that. You can do that by joining an industry Alliance like the Light Communications Alliance. You can do that by Crunchie, contributing to standardisation, be it ITU or IEEE or both. You can do that by helping to define the certification programme for the optical aspects. You can do it by reaching out to manufacturers of either components or products in order to realise your own commercial deployments. And of course, please continue to push the boundaries and research and academia to drive that technology even further. So with that, and I'm back then, earlier I showed you as a sign of the maturity of the processes and businesses with LiFi. I showed you some aviation examples. So here I'm using an aviation analogy. We are under runway, LiFi is taking up. This is your time to jump on board. And with that, I conclude my presentation and hand it back to you. Thank you very much”, Musa Unmehopa concluded.


You can also watch the full video presentation on the following YouTube link from Jakajima YouTube channel.

Li-Fi Conference 2022

The next Li-Fi Conference is coming up on the 28th of June 2022 between 10 am and 4.30 pm CET.

It is interesting to realise that lights that illuminate offices, homes, cars, factories, our streets and more locations also can connect us to data and hence power the growing demand for connectivity and speed.

At this conference professionals from all over the globe will gather together in order to share applications, ideas, new developments and ways to integrate Li-Fi in services, both for consumers and professionals.

This conference will be held Live and Online. The venue will be the High Tech Campus 1, The Strip 5656 AE Eindhoven The Netherlands.

Online tickets can be bought at the following link:

https://tikcit.com/register/61e002336d7fc4b6745cab83/

What is LiFi?

LiFi, also known as "Light Fidelity" is a wireless optical networking technology, which uses light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to transmit data. In 2011, professor Harald Haas made a LiFi demonstration at the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Global Talk on Visible Light Communication (VLC).

VLC uses light as a medium to deliver high-speed communication like Wi-Fi and complies with the IEEE standard IEEE 802.15.7. The IEEE 802.15.7 is a high-speed, bidirectional, and fully networked wireless communication technology-based standard similar to Wi-Fi's IEEE 802.11.

How does LiFi work?

LiFi is a high speed, bidirectional, and fully networked wireless communication of data using light. LiFi constitutes of several light bulbs that form a wireless network.

When an electrical current goes through to a LED light bulb, a stream of light (photons) emits from the lamp. LED bulbs are semiconductor devices, which means that the brightness of the light flowing through them can change at extremely high speeds. The signal is sent by modulating the light at different rates. The signal can then be received by a detector that interprets the changes in light intensity (the signal) as data. Also when the LED is ON, you transmit a digital 1, and when it is OFF, you transmit a 0.

LiFi Benefits

The primary benefits of LiFi are as follows:

• Security: Provides entirely secure access. Where there is no light there is no data.

• Safety: Does not produce electromagnetic radiation and does not interfere with existing electronic systems.

• Localisation: Allows localisation due to the small coverage area of LiFi access point - localisation can be used for very precise asset tracking.

• Data density: Provides ubiquitous high-speed wireless access that offers substantially greater data density (data rate per unit area) than RF through high bandwidth reuse.

Credit to Oledcomm

LiFi Applications

LiFi can be used for so many applications and the list is increasing every year. You can read our updated list of Li-Fi applications at the following link:

https://www.lifitn.com/blog/2021/2/13/top-30-li-fi-applications-updated-list-including-potential-applications

Credit to pureLiFi

In conclusion, if you are also interested to hear more information about the OWNII Coin or enquire about LiFi devices such as the LiFiMax and Trulifi, you can contact us through our chatbot or by sending an email through our contact us form. If you enjoyed this post and would like to hear more updates about LiFi technology, subscribe to our newsletter. Don’t forget to subscribe to our social media accounts. You can also join our Telegram group about LiFi technology on this link:

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