A

TECHNICAL SEMINAR REPORT

On

LIFI -TECHNOLOGY

Submitted in the partial fulfillment of the academic requirements

For the award of the Degree Of

BACHELOR OF TECHNOLOGY

In

ELECTRONICS AND COMMUNICATION ENGINEERING

By

SADULA SRIJA (18B61A04B2)

Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering

NALLA MALLA REDDY ENGINEERING COLLEGE

Autonomous Institution

(Accredited by NAAC with ‘A’ Grade, NBA Accredited,

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 Affiliated to Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad)
Divyanagar, Kachavani Singaram Post, Ghatkesar (M), Medchal (Dist)-500088
2018-2022
SUBMITTED BY:
Srija. Sadula
(18B61A04B2)

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Light Fidelity (Li-Fi) Technology
Forget Wi-Fi. It‟s Li-Fi: internet through Ligthbulbs!

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 Contents
ABSTRACT ……………………………………………………………………. 5

INTRODUCTION …………………………………………………………….. 6

WHAT IS THE PROBLEM ……………………………………………….. 7

SO HOW CAN WE SOLVE THIS PROBLEM ……………………… 7

VISIBLE LIGHT COMMUNICATION ……………………………….. 8

COMPONENTS ……………………………………………………………. 8

WHAT IS LIFI ………………………………………………………………. 9

HISTORY ……………………………………………………………………. 10

D-LIGHT PROJECT ……………………………………………………… 11

WORKING PRINCIPLE ……………………………………………….. 11-12

ADVANTAGES …………………………………………………………. 12 -15

LIFI WITH WIFI ……………………………………………………………. 16

APPLICATIONS OF LIFI ……………………………………………. 17-19

LIFI VERSUS WIFI ………………………………………………………..19-20

CHALLENGES FOR LIFI ……………………………………………….. 20 -21

CONCLUSION ……………………………………………………………….21

REFERENCES ……………… 21

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 Abstract
We know that spectrum is the rare coin for communication engineers.
Nowadays, with the rapid growth of wireless communications the
problem of using spectrum efficiently has become more important. Many
solutions have been proposed to solve this issue; one of these solutions is
the usage of visible light frequencies to send data. These frequencies are
already free and unused. Light fidelity (Li-Fi) is a new short range optical
wireless communication technology which provides the connectivity
within a local network, by using Light-Emitting Diodes (LEDs) to
transmit data depending on light illumination properties.
We shall explain in this report the basic foundation of this new technology
and its important applications. Then we discuss its challenges and
implemented projects all over the world.

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 Introduction
Transfer data from one place to another is one of the most important day-to-day
activities. The current wireless networks that connect us to the internet are very slow
when multiple devices are connected. As the number of devices that access the
internet increases, the fixed bandwidth available makes it more and more difficult to
enjoy high data rates and connect to a secure network. Nowadays, Everyone is
interested in using his mobile phone, laptop to communicate with other people
through Wireless-Fidelity (Wi-Fi) systems, and this technology, Wi-Fi, is widely
used in all public areas like home, cafes, hotels and airports by people, also the time
usage of wireless systems is increasing exponentially every year; but the capacity is
going down, due to the limitation of Radio Frequency (RF) resources, so we are going
to suffer from severe problem.
In order to overcome this problem in the future, Professor Harald Haas, an expert in
optical wireless communications, proposes in 2011 a brilliant and applicable solution
by using light to transmit data, he demonstrated how an Light-Emitting Diodes (LED)
bulb equipped with signal processing technology could stream a high-definition
video to a computer and he showed that one watt LED light bulb would be enough to
provide net connectivity to four computers.
This new technology is known as Light–Fidelity (Li-Fi). It is a short range wireless
communication system based on light illumination from LED, and use the visible
light as a signal carrier instead of traditional RF carrier as in Wi-Fi. Professor Harald
Haas coined the term "Light-Fidelity" and set up a private company, called “Pure
Visible Light Communication”, to exploit that technology. He envisions a future
where data for laptops and smart phones are transmitted through the light in a room
in a secure way.
In this seminar, we will talk about its features, applications and advantages, some
practical projects that have been implemented; and we will show that it can be
seriously the future of communication technology.

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What is the Problem?

Despite continuous improvements in wireless communication systems, e.g. 3G, 4G,

etc.., a coming crisis is expected due to the lack of sufficient Radio Frequency (RF)
resources, this limitation in bandwidth can‟t support the growth in demand for high
data rates and the large numbers of communication systems, as shown in Figure 1,
within the bandwidths between 300 kHz and 4 GHz. That‟s known as “Spectrum
Crunch”.
Although, spectrum congestion decreases when we use high frequencies to transfer
data, but this not a practice solution, because this part of spectrum requires complex
equipment and causes high cost systems.

Figure : Multiple communication systems cause Spectrum

Crunch.

So how can we solve this problem?

Actually, there are numbers of technologies that provide realistic and applicable solutions to this
issue. One of them is the “Cognitive Radio”. It is a new sort of wireless communication with a
transceiver architecture that can intelligently detect which communication channels are in use and
which are not, and instantly move into empty channels to use them to transmit data. Another
solution is the transmission of data using visible light illumination which use very high frequency.
In general, this technology known as Visible Light Communication (VLC).

There are also many brilliant and efficient solutions, in this seminar we will focus on Light
Fidelity (Li-Fi) technology, which is based on VLC.
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Visible Light Communication

Definition
VLC is an optical communication technology that use visible light rays, these rays locate between
[400-800] THz, as optical carrier for data transmission by illumination. It uses fast pulses of light,
which cannot be detected by the human eye, to transmit data. It includes any use of the visible
light portion of the electromagnetic spectrum to transmit information. The VLC standardization
process is conducted within IEEE wireless personal area networks working group (802.15).
One of VLC‟s features is providing wide bandwidth as illustrated in Figure . We can obviously
see that usage the optical portion of spectrum guarantees about 10,000 times greater bandwidth
compares to the usage of the RF frequencies.

Figure : Location of visible light and RF frequencies at electromagnetic

spectrum.

What is Li-Fi?
Li-Fi is a new technology for short range wireless communication system; which is suitable for data transmission
via LEDs by illumination. It uses the visible light, a part of the electromagnetic spectrum that is still not greatly
utilized, instead of RF part.Professor Harald Haas, the original founder of Li-Fi technology, in his Technology

Entertainment Design (TED) global talk on Li-Fi says: “At the heart of this technology is a new generation of
high brightness LEDs”, he also
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explains “Very simply, if the LED is on, you transmit a digital 1, if it‟s off you transmit a 0, they can be switched
on and off very quickly, which gives nice opportunities for transmitted data.” It is possible to encode data in the
light by varying the rate at which the LEDs flicker on and off to give different strings of 1s and 0s. Figure 4
illustrates the idea of data transmission using light. The LED intensity is modulated so rapidly that the human eye
cannot notice, so the output appears constant; also more sophisticated techniques could dramatically increase Li-
Fi data rates such as using array of LEDs, where each LED transmits a different data stream, to provide parallel
data transmission. Other ideas are using mixtures of red, green and blue LEDs to alter the light frequency encoding
a different data channel. In the next paragraphs, we will talk about the history of the technology, its working
principle and its various advantages.

Components

As we see in the previous paragraph, VLC is a communication system which consists

of a transmitter, a receiver and a communication channel. The main components of
VLC systems are:
• High brightness Light-Emitting Diodes (LEDs) or any light sources, which acts
as transmitter.
• A silicon photodiode has the roll of a detector and it shows a good response to
visible wavelength.
• Communication channel is air or fibre optics.
Usually, we add to these components some necessary circuits like a driving circuit
and a receiving circuit. The driving circuit consists of a control circuit and output
stage to modify the data and make it ready to be sent and the receiving circuit consists
of a filter to select the required band, amplification stage to provide the required
Signal to Noise ratio in order to demodulate the signal. We show a block diagram of
VLC system

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History

The term was first used by Professor Harald Haas from University of
Edinburgh, United Kingdom, in his TED global talk in 2011. Li-Fi idea rates
as “one of 50 best inventions of 2011” on TED world site on the internet.
The first project which explains the idea of Li-Fi was The D-Light project.
It was funded from January 2010 to January 2012 at Edinburgh's Institute
for Digital Communications by Professor Haas; we will explain this project
in the next paragraph.
Here we show the history of Li-Fi:

➢ 2011, Haas promoted this technology in TED global talk and helped start a
company to market it.
➢ October 2011, companies and industry groups formed the Li-Fi
consortium, to promote high-speed optical wireless systems and to
overcome the limited amount of radio-based wireless spectrum available
by exploiting a completely different part of the electromagnetic spectrum.
➢ 2012, VLC technology exhibited by using Li-Fi Consortium.
➢ October 2013, Chinese manufacturers work on Li-Fi development kits.
➢ April 2014, the Russian company Stins Coman announced the
development of a Li-Fi wireless local network called BeamCaster. Their
current module transfers data at 1.25 Gbps.

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 D-Light Project

D-Light, which means “data through illumination”, is the invention of

Professor Harald Hass. He says that his invention can produce data rates
faster than 10 Mbps, which is speedier than average broadband connection.
He visualizes a future where data for laptops, smartphones, and tablets is
transmitted through the light in a room, but Haas says that this version is
limited by existing LEDs and by the usage of LEDs as transmitters and
detectors at the same time. However, he has created a better LED, which
provides a data rate close to 4 Gbps operating on just 5 milliwatt of optical
output power and using high bandwidth photodiodes at the receiver. Haas
says that we can send data with a distance of 10 meters at up to 1.1 Gbps
with a simple lens, and soon they will increase that up to 15 Gbps. The
802.11ad Wi-Fi standard for the 60 GHz radio band reaches just under 7
Gbps, so Li-Fi would more than double of that rate.
D-Light system uses Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM)
techniques, which allows us to vary the intensity of the LEDs output at a very
fast rate, invisible to the human eye; for the eye, the bulb would simply be on
and providing light. The signal can be picked up by simple receivers. He says:
“It should be so cheap that it‟s everywhere. Using the visible light spectrum,
which comes for free”.

Working Principle

Li-Fi technology is implemented using white LED light bulbs used for
illumination by applying a constant current. However, by fast variations of
the current, the light output can be made to vary at extremely high speeds.
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 If the LED is on, it transmits a digital 1otherwise it transmits a digital 0. 7
The LEDs can be switched on and off quickly to transmit data that can‟t be
detected by a human eye.
So what we need at all for sending data are some LEDs and a controller that
cods data into those LEDs and for receiving data, we need an Image Sensor,
Photodiode which is used as a detector, these components are shown in
Figure 5.

Figure 5: The main component of Li-Fi system: LEDs,

Photodiode and Image sensor.

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 The LED bulb will hold a micro-chip that will do the job of processing the
data. The light intensity can be manipulated to send data by tiny changes in
amplitude.

Figure 6 shows the working principle of Li-Fi system, for data transmission;
it can be done by single LED or multi LED. On the receiver side there is a
photo detector, which convert this light into electric signals and it will give
the electric signals to the device connected to it. Voltage regulator and level
shifter circuits are used on both sides to convert or maintain a voltage level
between transmitter and receiver.
Figure : The working principle of the Li-Fi.

Advantages

Li-Fi is ideal for high density wireless data coverage in confined area and
for reducing radio interference issues. Its features include benefits to the
capacity, energy efficiency, safety and security of a wireless system; now,
we will talk briefly about each one of these advantages.
I. Efficiency

The efficiency of each radio station is just 5%due to the fact that most of
the energy is used for the cooling system in base of the radio station. Li-Fi
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is highly efficient because LED consumes less energy. It is effective in

terms of low cost, low required energy and for various Environments. In
this topic there are some main and important points:
Low cost: Requires fewer components than radio technology, due to
✓
the cheap price of the LEDs and Digital components compared with
the microwave equipment.
✓ Energy: LED illumination is already efficient and the data

transmission does not requires, additional power because most energy

dissipation in LEDs requires little amount of energy.
✓ Environment: RF transmission and propagation in water is
extremely difficult but Li-Fi works well in this environment.
II. Capacity

Any lighting devices like car lights, ceiling lights, street lamps, etc. are used
as a hotspot. It means that any light spread internet using VLC which helps
us to lower cost architecture for a hotspot. The most important issues here
are Bandwidth, Data density and speed.

✓ Bandwidth: The visible light spectrum more abundant 10,000 times

compared with the RF spectrum..
✓ Data density: Li-Fi can achieve about 1000 times the data density of
Wi-Fi because visible light can be well contained in a tight
illumination area, whereas RF tends to spread out and cause
interference.
✓ High speed, Very high data rates can be achieved as high as
500mbps or 30GB per minute due to the low interference, high
device bandwidths and high intensity optical output.

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III. Safety

Light is all around us – it is a natural part of life – and as such there are no
health concerns associated with its use as a communications medium. It
never gives any side effects on any living thing like radio waves and other
1communication waves which can dangerously interfere with electronic
circuits and have effects on birds and humans.
IV. Security

“If you can’t see the light, you can’t access the data!”

Because of the signal will not travel through walls, it is difficult to

eavesdrop on Li-Fi signals. You can also see where the data is going, so
there is no need for additional security such as pairing for RF
interconnections like Bluetooth.

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 Life
with
Li-Fi
The dramatic growth in the usage of LEDs for lighting
provides the opportunity to incorporate Li-Fi technology into
a plethora of LED environments, for instance any lighting
devices like car lights, ceiling lights and street lamps are used
as a hotspot which helps us to lower cost architecture for a
hotspot.
This technology is particularly suitable for many popular
internet applications; you can download movies, games and
music in just a few minutes with the help of Li-Fi.

Figure shows the environment with the Li-Fi technology

where light bulbs are used as a data communication medium
to PC, Laptop and Tablet as it all have photo detector
connected to it as receiver.

Figure : Environment with Li-Fi.

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 Applicati
ons of
LiFi
Due to its advantages, Li-Fi has a lot of Life applications. Here we will talk
about some important applications of it.

a. Underwater Communications
Using RF signals is impractical due to strong signal absorption in water. Li-Fi
provides a solution for short- range communications. Submarines could use
their headlamps to communicate with each other, process data autonomously
and send their findings periodically back to the surface in Underwater Remotely
Operated Vehicles (ROV). Another important issue is that Li-Fi can even work
underwater where Wi-Fi fails completely, thereby it‟s open for military
operations.

Figure shows water vehicles which use light to communicate with each other and
transfer data between them.

Figure 8: Optical Underwater Communications system.

b. Traffic Management
Li-Fi can help in managing the traffic in a better manner and the accident
numbers can be decreased. Traffic lights can communicate to the car and with
each other to manage the traffic in the street.

Traffic light can play the role of the sender of the data to provide information
to the car on the status of the road or about the situation of other cars as shown
in Figure . Also cars can communicate with each other and prevent accidents
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 by exchanging information. For example, LED car lights can alert drivers other
vehicles are too close.

Fig : vehicle visible light communication

C. Airways
We have to switch off mobiles in aircrafts to prevent overlapping of mobile phone signals with
navigation and control signals used by aircraft. Li-Fi can be safely used on planes because it
doesn't interfere with RF. Since it Data is present where light is present, we can use the lights
above the seats in the plane as hotspot.

D .Medical Applications

One of the most important features of Li-Fi is that it could be used in hospitals and medical
settings that require the lack of RF signals which affect the medical equipment. For example, OTs
(Operation theatres) do not allow
using Wi-Fi due to radiation concerns because usage of Wi-Fi blocks the signals for monitoring
equipment’s. So, it may be dangerous to the patient's health.

E. Blind Indoor Navigation System

Indoor navigation is convenient for everyone, and it is especially indispensable for the visually
impaired. We proposed such a navigation system for the visually impaired as shown in Figure.
LED lights emit visible light with location data and an embedded system or smartphone with a
visible light receiver which receives the data. The embedded system or smartphone calculates the
optimal path to a designation and speaks to the visually impaired through a headphone.

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 Figure : Indoor Navigation system for Blind people.
F .In Sensitive Areas or in Hazardous Environments

Li-Fi provides a safe communication in environments such as mines and petrochemical plants,
because it doesn’t cause electromagnetic interference which appears in RF communications. Li-
Fi can also be used in petroleum or chemical plants where other frequencies could be hazardous.

For example, power plants like nuclear power plants require grid integrity and monitoring of the
station temperature that need fast, inter-connected data systems. Wi-Fi and many other radiation
types are bad for sensitive areas surrounding the power plants. Li-Fi could offer safe, abundant
connectivity for all areas of these sensitive locations.

Moreover this technology also enables us to control plants and their growth without direct presence.
G .Disaster Management
Li-Fi can be used as a powerful means of communication at times of disaster such as earthquake or
hurricanes, for example places like subway stations and tunnels which are common dead zones for
most emergency communications, don‟t pose obstruction for Li-Fi, so it can be used there, as
emergency communication.

Li-Fi versus Wi-Fi

Wi-Fi is the popular name for the wireless Ethernet 802.11b standard for Wire line local area networks (WLANs).
It is the name of a popular wireless networking technology that uses radio waves to provide wireless high-speed
Internet and network connections. This technology works with no physical wired connection between sender and
receiver by using RF, a frequency within the electromagnetic spectrum associated with radio wave propagation.
When an RF current is supplied to an antenna, an electromagnetic field is created that then is able to propagate
through space.

Li-Fi is a term of one used to describe visible light communication technology applied to high speed wireless
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 communication. It acquired this name due to the similarity to Wi-Fi, only using light instead of radio. Wi-Fi is
great for general wireless coverage within buildings, and li-fi is ideal for high density wireless data coverage in
confined area and for relieving radio interference issues, so the two technologies can be considered
complimentary. Li-Fi provides better bandwidth, efficiency, availability and security than Wi-Fi and has already
achieved blisteringly high speed compare with Wi-Fi. It is low-cost technology because of nature of LEDs and
lighting units and there are many opportunities to exploit this medium. Table 1 shows a comparison between Li-
Fi and Wi-Fi.

Table 1: comparison between Li-Fi and Wi-Fi

technology Bandwidth Speed Data Rang Security Power ecological Cost

Expansion Density available impact

Wi-Fi Limited 150 Low medium Good Low medium medium

Mbps (medium)
Li-Fi Exceptional >10 High Low Excellent High Low Low
Gbps (High)

Challenges for Li-Fi

Apart from many advantages over Li-Fi, this technology is facing some problems such as Li-Fi
requires line of sight (LOS) and receiving device would not be shift in indoors. A major
challenge is how the receiving device
will transmit data back to transmitter. Another important issue is interference from
external light sources like sun light, normal bulbs; opaque materials in the path of
transmission will cause interruption in the communication. Another disadvantage is
that Li-Fi doesn’t work in the dark or light can’t pass through objects, so if the receiver is
inadvertently blocked in any way, then the signal will immediately cut out. And the
signal is easily blocked by somebody simply walking in front of the LED source

Conclusion
The possibilities are numerous and can be explored further because the concept of Li-
Fi is currently attracting a lot of eye-balls because it offers a genuine and very
efficient alternative to radio based wireless. It has a good chance to replace the
traditional Wi-Fi because as an ever increase population is using wireless internet,
the airwaves are becoming increasingly clogged, making it more and more difficult
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 to get a reliable, high-speed signal. In the future, data for laptops, smart phones and
tablets can be transmitted through light in the room by using Li- Fi. Researchers are
developing micron sized LED which are able to flicker on and off around 1000 times
quicker than larger LED. If this technology can be put into practical use, every bulb
can be used as a Wi- Fi hotspot to transmit wireless data and we will proceed toward
the cleaner, greener, safer and brighter future. This concept promises to solve issues
such as the shortage of radio-frequency bandwidth and boot out the disadvantages of
Wi-Fi. Li-Fi is the upcoming and on growing technology acting as competent for
various other developing and already invented technologies. Hence the future
applications of the Li-Fi can be predicted and extended to different platforms and
various walks of human life.

References
(2011) Good. [Online]. http://magazine.good.is/articles/forget-wifi-it-s-lifi-internet-through-lightbulbs

(2014) pureLiFi. [Online]. http://purelifi.com/

(2015) wikipedia. [Online]. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visible_light_communication

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