POINT-TO-POINT DIGITAL COMMUNICATION

using VLC (Visible Light Communication) and LIFI

technology
Soumyajit Chatterjee Vasudha Kothari Aakash Kumar
Electronics and Communication Electronics and Communication Electronics and Communication
Engineering Engineering Engineering
University of Engineering and University of Engineering and University of Engineering and
Management, Kolkata Management, Kolkata Management, Kolkata
West Bengal,India West Bengal,India West Bengal,India
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Mahesh Nair Ella Lokesh

Electronics and Communication Electronics and Communication
Engineering Engineering
University of Engineering and University of Engineering and
Management, Kolkata Management, Kolkata
West Bengal,India West Bengal,India
[email protected] [email protected]

Abstract— This paper attempts to clarify the concept and recent study, the maximum number of patents on LiFi has
applications of Li-Fi technology. The current Wi-Fi network use been submitted by Samsung. Oledcomm has been working on
Radio Frequency waves, but the available RF spectrum for to merge big data and LiFi together to simplify tasks.
usage is very limited, so the new technology of Li-Fi came into
picture. Li-Fi is the recent development. In this paper, array of Oledcomm has developed a ceiling lamp- LiFiMax which
LEDs is used in the visible light spectrum to transmit data. This offered internet connectivity to 16 users at the same time at a
technology offers advantages like increased accessible spectrum, speed of about 100Mbps.
efficiency, security, low latency and much higher speed as
compared to Wi-Fi. This research paper aims at designing a Li- PureLifi – the creator of LiFi has been working with
Fi transceiver using Arduino that is able to transmit and receive Apple Inc. to introduce LiFi in iPhones. They have also
data in binary format. The software coding is done in Arduino- introduced LiFi-X, a portable hotspot and dongle to enable
Uno platform. Successful transmission and reception of internet browsing and connectivity in a confined space using
data(alphanumeric) has been done. LiFi.

Keywords— Light Fidelity or Li-Fi system, Arduino Uno,

Light emitting diodes(LEDs), visible light III. WORKING PRINCIPLE
communication(VLC).
• The prototype uses an LED array as the
I. INTRODUCTION transmitting antenna and a PIN diode (BPW34)
array as the receiving antenna, each connected to
Visible light communication is communication using light its respective Arduino Uno chip.
which is visible to human eye. Here communication is • Transmitter section :
achieved by the help of LEDs. We modulate the light at a very • The Arduino code converts in input
high speed such that the modulation is not visible to human text(alphanumeric) into its binary form
eye by switching the LEDs on and off rapidly on the and sends it in form of packets of 6 or 7
transmitter side. Likewise, on the receiver side photodiode is bits.
used to detect the modulation. Light Fidelity or Li-Fi is • Each symbol in the text is converted first
communication through light at a very high speed. Li-Fi (light into its ASCII form, and then to binary
fidelity) was introduced first time by Prof. Harald Haas on
which is either 6 or 7 bits long. This
July 2011 at TED Global Talk. It is based on Visual Light bitstream is to be transmitted.
Communication (VLC) system. Speed of Li-fi is about
• In our initial prototype, 0 was represented
224Gbps. Modulation of light using LEDs can be done using
by OFF led and 1 was represented by ON
processors such as Arduino. Li-Fi enables the electronic
led;
device to connect to the internet without wire. The emergence
And each bit was assigned a time interval
of LiFi is to overcome the shortage of Wi-Fi.
(eg: 20 ms for 1st bit, next 20ms for 2nd bit
II. LITERATURE REVIEW and so on.). At first a handshake signal
would be sent that would ensure that
Many companies have taken up projects on LiFi
transmitter and receiver timers are in
technology. Companies like Phillips, Samsung, Signify, LVX
etc. are currently working on this technology. According to a sync. Then the data would have followed
coherently.

XXX-X-XXXX-XXXX-X/XX/$XX.00 ©20XX IEEE

 But it was found that that the
system becomes undependable at higher
data speeds.
• Now since Arduino Uno is very sensitive
to voltage fluctuations, we now use a
fixed number of voltage fluctuations to
represent 0 and 1. In the current prototype
0 is represented by 3 fluctuations (
meaning LED changes its state 3 times
to transmit a single ‘0’) and 1 is
represented by 2 fluctuations.
• A small time interval after each bit
separates it from the next bit. Also there Fig. 2. Receiver Circuit
is a guard bit at the end that indicates
completion of data transmission.
• Receiver section : A. Outcome
• A photodiode aray is connected in a • Alphanumeric symbols ( anything that can be
voltage divider circuit with a variable represented with an ASCII value) in form of a
resistance and Arduino Uno. The string can be transmitted.
variable resistance controls sensitivity of • The current prototype can only function effectively
the receiver. across 1 foot range. After that errors due to ambient
• The photodiode senses the incoming light creep in. Darker the room, better the prototype
fluctuation, Arduino decides whether it’s functions.
a 0 or 1 then stores it a 7 bit array called • Sensitivity of the receiver is adjustable, but needs
‘bin’ to be manually adjusted according to ambient light
• The binary array is converted to its intensity.
decimal form (ASCII) and then to text • Current effective data transmission speed is 100
format and is printed on the screen. bits/sec. Arduino Uno’s processing speed limits the
• Then ‘bin’ is freed up for the next transmission speed.
incoming symbol.
• Moreover the receiver will only respond to a B. Applications
certain fluctuation frequency, this makes the
system resistant to ambient light fluctuations • As we are using visible light communication (VLC)
which is a fastest growing technology that allows for
(unless ambient light is too bright).
data transmission using light as a medium of
• This process is independent of time division and is communication .
also non coherent, so there is no error at higher
data speeds. The only errors are caused when • Medical applications- WiFi cannot be used in
transmission speeds reach close to Arduino Uno’s operation theatre because they can interface with
processing speed. medical equipment .
• Internet access in Aircraft -the Wi-Fi is cannot be used
inside the aircraft because that can interface with
navigation system of aircraft or aeroplane.
• Underwater application- Radio waves can get easily
absorbed in water and therefore can limit the
underwater radio communications, whereas light can
travel large distances in water.
• Radio broadcast – Large amount of power required for
broadcasting purpose if we use li-fi then the power and
cost both can be reduced.

C. Inferences and Challenges faced

• In the first experiment we transmitted an audio signal

Fig. 1. Transmitter Circuit from a mobile phone to the speaker using the first two
circuits given above. The experiment was done to have
a brief understanding on the factors which we need to
give more attention to and problems that we have to
face throughout the project work.
• First of all we need to increase speed because that is
what Li-Fi is all about. Increase the speed would
enable us to transmit huge chunks of data within a V FUTURE WORK
matter of seconds. The main motive of our project was to implement a Li-Fi
model suitable for internet browsing and live streaming. We
• Secondly, the distance was a major contributing
have been successful in sending low amounts of data but
factors to the drawbacks of this experiment. The circuit
sending data like multimedia (photo, video) and image data is
was effective only for a distance of about 1m. our main point of concern. In the future we wish to implement
• Thirdly, interference and noise was much higher in this our model in the field of IOT as well. We can use our model
setup. in hospitals as the main media of communication between
systems and devices like live tracking of patients’ condition –
• So our next step was to focus on the software heart rate, blood pressure etc.
requirements behind this, the last two picture given
above show the approach taken by us for doing so. We .
used Arduino Unos to transmit data from one point to
another using Li-Fi. First off we started with binary REFERENCES
data transmission and slowly but steadily we moved on
to complex data. But due to inefficiency in the [1] Goswami, P. and Shukla, M.K. (2017) Design of a Li-Fi Transceiver.
processing speed and algorithms in the arduino Uno Wireless Engineering and Technology, 8, p-71-86.
we faced bigger problems doing so. [2] Haas H, Yin L, Wang Y, and Chen C 2016 What is LiFi? J. Light.
Technol. 34 pp 1533–44.
• The problems faced were the same as we had faced [3] Ayyash M et al 2016 Coexistence of WiFi and LiFi toward 5G:
earlier. Now the task remains to work on increasing Concepts, opportunities, and challenges IEEE Commun. Mag. 54(2) pp
64–71.
speed and efficiency of the network.
[4] pureLiFi 2017 Shedding Light on LiFi PureLiFi.
• So on combining the hardware and the software [5] Arnon, S. (2012) Advanced Optical Wireless Communication Systems.
limitations we will be able to take care of all the Cambridge University Press, New York.
problems and try our best in creating the best [6] Jovicic, A., Li, J. and Richardson, T. (2013) Visible Light
appropriate prototype of Li-Fi which will be power Communication: Opportunities, Challenges and the Path to Market.
IEEE Communications Magazine, 51, 26-32.
efficient and error-free.
[7] Tsonev, D., Chun, H., Rajbhandari, S., McKendry, J., Videv, S., Gu,
IV. CONCLUSION E., Haji, M., Watson, S., Kelly, A., Faulkner, G., Dawson, M., Haas,
H. and O’Brien, D. (2014) A 3-Gb/s Single-LED OFDM-Based
In this paper working model of a Li-Fi prototype has Wireless VLC Link Using a Gallium Nitride μLED. IEEE Photonics
Technology Letters, 26, 637-640.
been successfully implemented. We have successfully
[8] Haas, H., Yin, L., Wang, Y. and Chen, C. (2016) What Is Li-Fi? Journal
send binary data serially in ascii format in the transmitter of Lightwave Technology, 34, 1533-1544.
module. Circuit diagram and schematics have been [9] RF Wireless World Website (2017) LiFi vs WiFi-Basic Difference
successfully implemented. If this technology can be put between LiFi and WiFi.
into practical use then every bulb can be used as a Wi-Fi [10] Kahn, J.M. and Barry, J.R. (1997) Wireless Infrared Communications.
hotspot to transmit and receive the data at the same time. Proceedings of the IEEE, 85, 265-298.
The advantage of not using the Radio Frequency is such [11] Badamasi, Y.A. (2014) The Working Principle of an Arduino. 2014
that Li-Fi technology can be used in underground mines, 11th International Conference on Electronics, Computer and
Computation (ICECCO), Abuja, 29 September-1 October 2014.
airplanes, submarines and other places where RF waves
[12] OSRAM (2010) Golden DRAGON LCW W5SM. 1-23.
are not desired. We were having trouble in increasing the
[13] Tang, Q., Gupta, S.K.S. and Schwiebert, L. (2005) BER Performance
speed of the communication, and since salso the size of Analysis of an On-Off Keying Based Minimum Energy Coding for
the Arduino processor is very small in size(32kb) Energy Constrained Wireless Sensor Applications. IEEE International
transmission of big data files was not possible. These Conference on Communications, 4, 2734-2738.
limitations can be overcome by using better processors.
Also inference through sunlight and other lights is a big
challenge.