Abstract:

Wireless data communications are an essential component of mobile

computing.Wifi is a technology that enables mobile computing for wireless data
communications.It enables devices like personal computers,gaming
consoles,smartphones and some digital cameras etc. to connect to Internet. This
technology has become unignoreable in the current world.The vast source of
knowledge available in the Internet and the growth in the number of devices
accessing it has led to an increase in the network complexity and shortage in the
bandwidth.With these the network speed of Wifi is decreasing proportionally.
Because of the fact that WiFi networks have limited range and with the excessive
number of users in the same area has caused an increased risk of interference of
radio frequencies and thus in communication .To prevent this or to increase the
performance of wireless communications a concept of transferring data using light
known as Li-Fi has been introduced.Using visible lights as the source of
transferring data Li-Fi enables to overcome the limitation of Radio Frequency of
limited bandwidth availability.These paper presents the idea of how Li-Fi uses
visible light to transmit the data.How Li-Fi is different from Wi-Fi? Will it be able
to completely replace WiFi?


1. Introduction.
Li-Fi (or Light Fidelity), termed by Prof. Harald Hass from University of
Edinburgh,UK,in his TED Global talk on VLC, is the latest Wireless
Communication Technology.It refers to 5G visible lights.It uses visible light
communications instead of the radio frequency waves.It is a part of Optical Wireless
Communications and can be a compliment to Radio Frequency(RF)
Communications such as Wi-Fi.Data are sent through the LED light bulb which
varies in intensity ,and is not visible to human eyes.Prof. Harald Hass explains how
LED light bulbs are capable of transmitting the data.He says,the LEDs can be
switched on and off very quickly and therefore,if the LED is on,you transmit digital
1;if its off you transmit a 0.Li-Fi thus comprises of wide range of frequencies and
broader bandwidth. It is bidirectional,highspeed communication technology. Dr.
Haas says his invention,which he calls D-light can produce data rates greater than
10mbps, which is faster than the data rates today.With Li-Fi you can access internet
any where in the school,home,office through simple light sources.



Fig: An Overview Of Li Fi Environment.



2. Design of Li-Fi:

Li-Fi consists of many LED bulbs,As LEDs intensity can be modulated at very high
speed,it can be switched ON-OFF at very high speed that even human eye cant
detect,this fundamental property is therefore used by Li-Fi. A switching on and off
of LED bulbs enables a data transmission using binary codes(i.e. 1 if on and 0 if
off), a transceiver can be fitted with a LED bulb to transmit or to receive the
encoded data.The transmission of data wirelessly through light by varying its
intensity is termed as Visible Light Communication(VLC).VLC is a data
communication medium using visible,primarily white light.Hence ,all it requires is
a high brightness white LED(as a communication source) fitted with a transciever
and an optical sensor/ photo detector(a silicon photodiode) that inturn acts as a
medium to transmit and receive optical signals to and fro the LED bulbs which
again with the help of transceiver sends or receives data from the Internet.In order
to transmit signals all we need to do is vary the intensity of the light or the rate at
which the LEDs flicker depending upon the data to be sent.


Fig2. Transmission of Data in LiFi environment.

3. Differences between LiFi And WiFi:

Li Fi and Wi Fi both are the wireless technologies developed for the purpose of
providing wireless communications. However Wi Fi uses the radio frequency for
communication whereas Li Fi uses the visible light for the same.The use of visible
light reduces the shortcomings of radio frequencies in terms of the availability of
bandwidth.Radio Spectrum has limited bandwidth and therefore cannot fulfill the
increasing demand , whereas the Light Spectrum is 10000 times more plentiful than
the radio frequencies.
Wi Fi uses router for communicating one device with the other,whereas Li Fi uses a
transceiver fitted simple LED Bulbs.
Wi Fi cannot be used in electromagnetic sensitive places as the radio frequencies
creates an electromagnetic interferences.For eg. Wi-Fi cannot be used in
Airplanes,Hospitals etc.Since Lifi uses light instead of radio frequency, it provides
the flexibility of accessing the internet in places like hospitals,Airplanes and other
electromagnetic sensitive areas.Wi Fi provides data rate upto 100mbps, where as Li
Fi can provide a data rate in Gbps. The University of Edinburgh have already
demonstrated 3Gbps on a singlecolor. On a single LED with full color (R,G,B) this
could communicate at speeds up to 9Gbps.
Li Fi is more secure than Wi Fi since light cannot penetrate through walls,unwanted
access is not possible at all.
Li Fi has proved to be very advantageous than Wi Fi.But since Li Fi is operateable
only in localized environment it is hard to say that it can completely replace the
services provided by the Wi Fi technology.Unless and until there is a direct line of
sight between the transmitter and the receiver there is no significance of using a Li
Fi.In such cases Wi Fi prove to be more advantageous. LiFi does not interfere with
radio frequencies so we can use both Li Fi and Wi Fi technologies to gain maximum
advantage( wherever and whenever) possible provided we have the required
environment, equipments etc.Hence LiFi and WiFi can be considered as
complementary to each other.