Enhance Lighting for the Internet of Things

Today's Internet of Things (IoT), covering any communication between devices, is narrowband and not always provides reliability and low latency at the same time. A wide range of future IoT applications, i.e. flexible manufacturing, augmented reality and autonomous cars, will use artificial intelligence in the cloud to process sensor data jointly in real time. This future IoT will need mobile communication providing high bandwidth, reliable connectivity and low latency at the same time. While radio spectrum is densely populated, light communication (LC) can use unlicensed optical spectrum and enable high data rates over short distances for future IoT. By networking multiple LC-enabled access points, also known as Li-Fi, one can build a new mobile communication system integrated with lighting infrastructure that enables the future IoT. The main challenge to approach future IoT is to develop Li-Fi further into the mass-market serving a greater variety of use cases than today. Therefore, Li-Fi needs an open architecture, consensus building towards standards, a roadmap to support future IoT and technology demonstrations in real environments, such as indoors, manufacturing, logistics, conference rooms and outdoors for fixed-wireless access.