LiFi started its industrialization

The rivals of the WiFi vendors may not be another WiFi vendor, but rather an electric light manufacturer that has been killed halfway.

LiFi (LightFidelity), a branch of visible light communication technology, was considered by the LED manufacturer Qinshang Optoelectronics as the “white Fumei” combined with LED “Gao Fu Shuai”. By embedding chips in LED lights, LED lights have become a wireless hotspot, an alternative "WiFi" - it also has the characteristics of ultra-high speed, secure communication, and precise positioning that are not available in WiFi.

However, WiFi vendors do not have to be too nervous and everything is just beginning.

Indoor Information Network Fusion Agent?

Optical communication is not new. People have become accustomed to transmitting optical signals via fixed-fiber optics to achieve high-speed Internet access. The field of mobile communications has also experienced many iterations of 2G, 3G, and 4G. There is no essential difference between visible light communication (VLC) and it. The nature of light is wave. VLC uses a visible light wave with wider frequency to transmit signals. However, the communications industry is increasingly troubled by the limited spectrum resources, and each upgrade iteration cannot go beyond the discussion of how to allocate new spectrum. The width of visible light spectrum is at least 10,000 times that of radio frequency spectrum, and it has not yet been developed and utilized.

The LiFi technology was originally created to solve the problem of visible light spectrum utilization. By combining high frequency switching LED lamps and communication technology, scientists created LED-LiFi lamps similar to the Morse code, and formed a feasible VLC communication loop by carrying corresponding receiving and transmitting devices on the terminal equipment.

“By implanting a chip in an LED lamp, the LED lamp becomes a wireless hotspot, and the purpose of communication is achieved by using fast light pulses, wireless transmission, and binary coding. This new technology that uses LED visible light to replace electromagnetic wave transmission data It is called LiFi.

The founder of communication technology and telegraph inventor Bell once conceived of using visible light as a medium for communication. However, the technology at the time could neither produce a useful optical carrier nor transmit light from one place to another. The LED lamp has a high modulation rate, the human eye does not feel the light flicker, and with the help of new technologies, LED lights can already transmit data to 5 meters away, LiFi is only feasible.

Compared to WiFi, LiFi lamps can currently achieve data transmission rates of 10 Gbps (100 times the 4G rate), and visible light cannot cross the walls, and home Internet access will become more secure. In the field of precise positioning, LiFi also shows advantages. Supporters believe that LiFi technology has the basis for replacing WiFi. However, some people think that although the substitution effect of LiFi exists, there are certain limitations in using visible light as a carrier of communication. In the future, LiFi may coexist with WiFi and be applied to smart cities.

"I think that visible light communication will become a fusion agent for future indoor information networks. It will not only provide valuable spectrum resources for triple play and even N-network convergence, but it will also be able to take advantage of this technology's convenience, broadband, green, energy saving and security. To the extreme, "said Jiangxing Jiang, the founder of the triple play plan and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

Min Jiangxing believes that VLC will play a powerful role in upgrading traditional industries, stimulating new industries, transforming business models, and prospering service industries. "It will be a strategic emerging industry with trillions of output value."

The beginning of commercialization

At the 2014 Mobile World Congress, a French engineering company engaged in NETs (New Energy Technology) stated that the company is cooperating with France-listed research institute CEA-Leti to develop a LiFi receiver. The company also stated that it will be in the first half of this year. A 12-month joint R&D with a foreign smartphone company.

However, the LiFi technology system is always another system independent of the existing radio technology. It is not easy to obtain the support of the current system.

In the first half of 2013, the Ministry of Science and Technology initiated the research work on China's first high-tech research and development plan for the countries related to visible light communication (the National 863 Program) and the National Key Basic Research Development Program (the National 973 Program). Under the 863 and 973 issues, many domestic universities and scientific research institutions are carrying out visible light communication research. Several universities have achieved technical verification of LiFi communication and positioning in the laboratory. For example, the team of Prof. Xu Zhengyuan from China University of Science and Technology, Chilan University, Fudan University. The team of professors, the team of Professor Li Hongbin of Peking University and so on.

There are also Beijing Zhongqing Venture and other companies preparing “visible light communication industry fund” with a scale of RMB 5 billion for coal mine safety production network, LiFi indoor network, attraction explaining network, mobile payment network, indoor visible light precise positioning, media advertising network 6 industries Project development.

For LED manufacturers, the expansion of traditional LED lamps into network portals, without too much effort but potentially huge market opportunities, LED manufacturers have therefore expressed enthusiasm. However, the other half of the industrialization of LiFi still needs the cooperation of terminal manufacturers and chip vendors. It is not enough to use only bulky devices for data reception. If scale is used in the consumer electronics field, data backhaul, miniaturization, and optimization of the user experience are also needed.

The Guangdong Provincial Government attaches great importance to LiFi's transformation of production, education and research. Based on the advantages of local LED industry, it plans to set up major science and technology projects and invest 150 million yuan each year to promote technological research and industrialization. LED manufacturer Qinshang Optoelectronics has also been keen on the industrialization of LiFi. In 2013, it cooperated with Tsinghua University to research prototype LiFi phones.

"There are still many problems that have not been solved." For LiFi technology research and development, industrialization and other issues, Professor Xu Zhengyuan, a professor at the China University of Science and Technology and the chief scientist of the "Project on Broadband Spectral Signal Wireless Transmission Theory and Method Research" program, said.

In China, the "blind spots" such as tunnels and mines have become breakthroughs in LiFi industrialization. In November 2013, a number of companies, including the Pingmei Shenma Group, announced the launch of the Pingdingshan Coal Mine Safety Production Network pilot project with the Information Engineering University. In April 2014, Henan Zhongping Sichuan Instrument Company's LED project was put into operation in Pingdingshan. Its principle is: The chips between the LED energy saving lamp and the miner's lamp cap form an information exchange, and the miner is monitored and positioned in real time by the computer. The miner is in danger and can call the ground at any time to get in touch. However, the LiFi industrialization of the Pingdingshan Coal Mine has more symbolic significance. At present, it has not been known that other coal mines also use the LiFi positioning system.

At present, LiFi technology is also mainly for corporate customers to promote business. Japan is one of the earliest countries to carry out visible light communication research. Its application is mainly indoor positioning. It includes indoor navigation for visually impaired people, statistics of supermarket flow, and accurate position measurement. Its positioning effect has reached 1 mm with zero error. ".

Harald Haas, a professor at the University of Edinburgh in Germany, is one of the authoritative scientists in the field of LiFi. He is currently the chief scientific officer of the German startup PureLife, and the current focus of the HaraldHaas team is to transform existing lamps into a LiFi hotspot that can be networked.