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PEGGY SMEDLEY SHOW Episode 793 - Harald Haas on LiFi Technology
A few weeks ago, professor Harald Haas was once again invited as a guest speaker on the Peggy Smedley Show. The Peggy Smedley Show is an authoritative conversation hosted by tech journalist and sustainability influencer, Peggy Smedley with market leaders, authors, consultants, analysts, and more.
Peggy Smedley and professor Harald Haas talked all about what LiFi is and why it is important. He says it is wireless communications like we have with WiFi and with cellular, but we don’t use the radio spectrum, we use the ordinary light bulb in your home for high-speed data connection.
They also discuss the following topics:
The spectrum crunch and why we need enormous amounts of data.
Vulnerabilities with radio communication.
The importance of standards and interoperability.
Below are some of the conversations of the podcast about LiFi technology. Some of the conversations have been edited:
Prof. Harald Haas: “And let me tell you why LiFi is important. And before I do that, let me tell you also what LiFi is. LiFi is wireless communications like we have with WiFi and cellular. But we don't use the radio spectrum, we use your ordinary light bulb in your home for high-speed data connection. In a nutshell, it's LiFi.”
“So, there's this vulnerability in the RF domain and LiFi provides orders of magnitude better security, firstly, Layer Security in order to have not only more data but also more secure data going forward.”
“The optical spectrum will be able to deliver that because the total resources that are available are 2600 times larger than the entire radio spectrum. So, there's plenty of resources out there for building these networks and high-speed connectivity.”
Peggy: “So, when you think about when you talk about radiofrequency, and all of these things right now, what made you come up with then with LiFi is being the answer to all of these things that are frustrating us with data downloads, data speeds, you know, that's what we all talk about when we're at home?”
Prof. Harald Haas: “That's an absolutely great question. And the way I came up with that is because my background is as a wireless communications researcher. And 20 years ago, I left Siemens where I was involved in developing key technologies for 4G cellular. And there are regular conferences, the World Radio conferences, that would allocate new spectrum to cellular. And it was clear at that time that the amount of radio spectrum that would be allocated to cellular systems would not be sufficient to provide the resources for what was coming up the mobile, the mobile internet.”
“So, I saw that coming. So, I went into academia. And at the same time, I was inspired by colleagues in Japan, Professor Nakagawa at Keio University, who played with the wide high brightness LEDs for data communication. I was inspired by that and continued to start my own research, in the sense that we wanted to not develop optical wireless communications in the sense of TV remote controls where basically if an intentional connection, you control your TV with an optical data link. So, we wanted to build our networks, we wanted to build mobile networks that would allow mobility.”
“So, like in your WiFi use cases, if you have your WiFi handset, your WiFi phone, you're on Zoom, you can walk around, and you will not be disconnected. And I wanted to say I have the same experience but using light as a data bearer. And I, therefore, called it LiFi in analogy to WiFi, really signifying that we want to build networks not basically, point-to-point links. And so, I came up with the term LiFi, we build demonstrators, we built the proof of concepts. And as you said, we built a proof of concept 10 years ago that we showed at TEDGlobal that attracted a lot of interest. And we streamed a video from an off-the-shelf sort of $1 LED light bulb at a time.”
“So, with LiFi, what you really have is 2600 times more spectrum than the entire radio spectrum. It's free. It's unregulated. No country in the world regulates the light spectrum. So it's a free resource, and everybody can use it anywhere. So, that allows us to be equitable and allows us to build systems, the nervous system, essentially everywhere where we needed.”
“And the reason why many people are not connected that living in remote areas is because there is no business case to put a fibre into a remote village. So, we need to have something that allows even remote places to be connected at gigabit data rates that LiFi is capable of.”
“So, that's why we need to build also free-space optical communications, which essentially is a fibre connection without the fibre. So, we are building a connection, laser connection beaming the internet from a tower from a mast, to a house or to another tower, and then distributing the network.”
“And what's important is, we can do that with solar cells. And we can use solar panels that we have to put on our homes in order to be more energy-autonomous given the current situation. It's even more important to realise that, but these solar panels can fulfil two functions at the same time, they can take the photons from the sun and convert them into energy. But they can also take the photons of a laser data transmitter and convert it into data.”
“So, we've demonstrated the lab sort of three-gigabit data reception with a solar panel, with a solar cell. And the important thing is, it can be affordable because the technology can be low complex, we can get rid of some hardware elements, which are very costly, such as beam acquisition and tracking, and make it very, very simple and therefore low costs, and thereby building sort of a mesh network and connecting the unconnected, and allowing them to take part of the benefits of a digital society.”
Prof. Harald Haas: “For the LiFi indoor networking, I think we clearly need a standard because it touches all consumer devices, it touches your smartphone, your smartwatch, your smart fridge, all your smart devices at home, have to be connected with LiFi and it's a simple case.”
“But the good news is that there is a standard looming and ascending on the horizon in half a year to a year within the IEEE family. So, the IEEE stands for the Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers in the United States.”
“And interestingly now, there will be a new standard within the same family of WiFi, which is a LiFi standard which has the reference bd.”
Peggy: “So, is this to create a common Nervous System so to speak? What does interoperability mean then if you have WiFi, you have LiFi, what does this create then for the average consumer when they want products, because sometimes just because we have interoperability doesn't necessarily mean they talk to each other?”
Prof. Harald Haas: “And the optical spectrum is out there in order to deliver these resources for growing the nervous system towards a fully integrated network that allows sensing, communication, computing control, robotics, that really our cars in the future, that are autonomous on our road, are safe, and allow level four and five self-autonomous driving and you need like a human body if your fingers won't be that sensitive, you wouldn't be able to do all the things we can do in this world. And we don't just want to make the machines similarly capable. And that doesn't go without building lots of connections, to cars, aeroplanes, drones, underwater remote-operated vehicles, and also satellites and connecting satellites and satellites to the ground. So, we are talking about a huge undertaking, but a huge opportunity here. And we see the products to basically deliver on that nervous system being created as we speak.”
Peggy: “So, the really exciting thing that the consumers need to understand because we're consumers and businesses together is that there's going to be this great opportunity to see what we could do in our personal lives and our professional lives. And see how LiFi is going to actually change our world. And what we need to understand is that LiFi is going to change our world in a different way than we can imagine right now.”
Prof. Harald Haas: “But let me also say a few things about some general misconceptions, which I hopefully have the opportunity to take head on here is LiFi, requires a line of sight link. And people say that LiFi can be blocked by just putting your hand in front of the link. That is, in a sense, true. But it is also true that we can build very sensitive detectors that would allow data reception, even in a blocked scenario, or in a room when the light comes off a wall.”
“And also, we build spatial diversity systems where you have multiple LiFi transceivers in your phone, one at the backside on the front side, and if one is blocked, you still have the other one that would receive data.”
“So, we build fairly robust systems with LiFi, it also works under strong sunlight, because we have developed and patented modulation techniques that are robust to ambient light. So, it works outdoors as well as indoors, it works underwater, unlike radio, so you can connect and remotely operated vehicles underwater.”
“So really, that directionality is a key feature, you would argue that you can build directional RF communications. That's true, but there are always in RF sight loops that go in different directions rather than the main beam. And that approach, that is a security vulnerability that LiFi doesn't have.”
“And also, should say one very important point here is on data density. We talked about data rates, and we talked about terabit per second data rates. But it is an important metric. But it's a second very important metric as well, it's data density. So, if you're at home in your living room, and you have, say 10 people that want to get access to WiFi. And let's assume your WiFi delivers one gigabit, which is a good headline number. But usually what happens is that the 10 people in that room have to share that one gigabit, so they actually get 100 megabits so it's much lower than the peak data rate.”
“And lastly, what I want to say is we are currently in our research and our LiFi research and development centre, we are currently building really terabit per second optical wireless networks that do exactly what I've just described, giving users their private beam based on a multi-beam approach and a grid of beam approach and allowing also mobility and allowing sort of blockage of light. So, these are very important all these very important facts and I was hoping to convey and thanks for giving me the opportunity here, Peggy.”
Podcast Recording
You can also listen and download the podcast on the following:
https://peggysmedleyshow.com/all-about-lifi-0
Li-Fi Conference 2022
The Li-Fi Conference 2022 Edition was a great success. Li Fi Tech News will very soon write articles on the topics treated at the Conference.
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:
Credit to pureLiFi
LiFi Systems Reviews by LiFi Tech News
OLEDCOMM LIFIMAX KIT REVIEW - ONE YEAR IN
We reviewed the LiFiMax kit produced by the leading French LiFi company Oledcomm. We bought this LiFi kit system at the end of 2020. After over a year of use, we decided to write a review of this LiFi system. We looked briefly at the profile of Oledcomm, a brief history of the LiFiMax system, the Kit box contents, some testing and performance results of this LiFi system, the customer experience and our own verdict (the good and the bad points) of the LiFiMax kit.
You can read the review on this link:
https://www.lifitn.com/blog/lifimaxreview
SIGNIFY TRULIFI 6002.1 STARTER KIT SYSTEM REVIEW
We also reviewed the Trulifi 6002.1 starter kit produced by Signify, the world leader in lighting for professionals, consumers and lighting for the Internet of Things. We got this LiFi kit system with the help of PCDSI and Signify around August 2021. In a similar fashion done with our previous review of the LiFiMax kit a few months ago, we will look briefly at the profile of Signify, a brief history of the Trulifi 6002.1 kit, the Kit box contents, some testing and performance results of this LiFi system, the customer experience and our own verdict (the good points and the bad points) of the Trulifi 6002.1 kit.
You can read the review on this link:
https://www.lifitn.com/blog/trulifi6002review
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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