TECHNOLOGY
resource for civil , but also military , radio astronomy and defence applications . At the same time , white high brightness LEDs hit the market . These LEDs are semiconductor devices , which means that the light intensity could be changed very rapidly , a property needed if one would like to use them for high speed data communication . Moreover , by recognising that the light spectrum is part of the electromagnetic spectrum , the same as the RF spectrum , we were intrigued to find out , what data transmission speeds can be achieved with LEDs .
We pioneered ‘ Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing ’ ( OFDM ), a well-known technique for RF communications , for the use in visible light communications . OFDM has a number of disadvantages in RF communications , which we managed to turn into advantages when we applied it to LEDs given that the light spectrum is 1000 times larger than the entire RF spectrum ( if the RF spectrum is the Earth , the light spectrum would be the sun ).
This has enabled a breakthrough in achievable data rates with standard off-the-shelf LEDs . We started by demonstrating image transmission via desk lamps in 2006 ( which has led to the nomination in a book authored by Nobel Laureate , Professor Haensch , “ 100 Produkte der Zukunf ” ( 100 Products of the Future )), and later in 2011 the transmission of real-time videos from $ 3 LED lights at TED Global , where we coined ‘ LiFi ’ for the first time .
In our latest research we have shown that with special light sources it is possible to achieve 100 gbps . This is about 15 times faster than the fasted Wi-Fi , called WiGig operating in the 60 GHz RF spectrum .
We have also created a spin-out company , pureLiFi Limited , to develop the first commercial LiFi wireless
“ In the future , we will see a scenario where a mobile operator sells wireless access points and lights at the same time ”
36 June 2017