The document discusses using LiFi (Light Fidelity) integrated into streetlights to provide wireless internet connectivity. It describes how LiFi works using LED lights to transmit data, presents a system design and simulation of a LiFi network using streetlights as transmitters. A prototype was created using FPGAs and high power LEDs at the transmitter and a photodiode and FPGA at the receiver. The system achieves data rates over 28 gigabytes per second and provides advantages like high security, capacity, and efficiency over traditional WiFi networks.
2. Introduction
LiFi in Streetlights
System Design & Simulation
Prototype Description
Advantages & Applications
Conclusion
References
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LiFi integrated in streetlights
3. LiFi (‘Light Fidelity’) is one of the prominent emerging technologies in
today’s world
Radio spectrum is getting more congested each minute, leading to
alternate transmission techniques
Using LiFi, speed of data transmission is greatly increased; upto
28 Gigabytes per second, which is 100 times faster than Wifi !
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LiFi integrated in streetlights
4. Light based WiFi
Light is used instead of radio waves to transmit information
Transmitter fitted with LED lamps act like WiFi modems
Provides illumination as well as data communication
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LiFi integrated in streetlights
5. Capacity
Spectrum is 10,000 times greater than that of radio frequency
Efficiency
Highly efficient since LED consumes less energy
Availability
Light waves available everywhere
Security
Cannot penetrate through walls, hence data cannot be intercepted
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LiFi integrated in streetlights
6. Formed by streetlight as transmitter and mobile phone camera as
receiver.
Streetlights receive data via PLC & modulate the information through LED
bulb
The light is received by the smartphone through a photodiode integrated
in it’s camera
Uplink is via Bluetooth, ZigBee or WiFi
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LiFi integrated in streetlights
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LiFi integrated in streetlights
Fig 1. LiFi network in a smart city
8. The system design and simulation consists of two processes:
I. Simulation of the Modulator
II. Simulation of the Transmitting Channel
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LiFi integrated in streetlights
9. I. Simulation of Modulator
Each of the blocks that make up the LiFi transmitter and receiver are
simulated in MATLAB
The modulation schemes used are on-off-keying (OOK) and variable
pulse position modulation (VPPM).
Reed Solomon (RS) encoders and Convolutional encoders (CC) are used
so as to correct channel errors and improve the link reliability.
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LiFi integrated in streetlights
10. An interleaver is included to avoid burst errors
RLL (Run Length Limited) encoders are used to balance the DC level of
the output
The RLL encoders used here are Manchester and 4B6B encoders
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LiFi integrated in streetlights
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LiFi integrated in streetlights
Fig 2. Block diagram of Modulator
12. The bit error rate (BER) is plotted after addition of AWGN (Additive White
Gaussian Noise).
It is observed that the operating mode that has the lowest data rate
presents the best performance because of the high protection.
SNR = 10 dB is chosen to illustrate the effect on an image transmission
using our simulated LiFi system.
Also, if a SNR = 15 dB is chosen, a level of BER and image quality are
acceptable for all modes of operation.
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LiFi integrated in streetlights
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LiFi integrated in streetlights
Fig 3. Performance plot (BER vs. SNR)
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LiFi integrated in streetlights
Fig 4. The quality of the image clearly shows the effect of coding
15. II. Simulation of Transmitting Channel
The transmitting medium (in this case, air), is an essential factor that
affects the LiFi reception
Some of the factors that affect reception include ambient light, Line Of
Sight (LOS), Field Of View (FOV), height of the streetlight, etc
Analysis is carried out by taking the impulse response of the channel,
which is then used to analyze and combat the effects of channel
distortions
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LiFi integrated in streetlights
16. For analysis, the link is considered to have LOS between the streetlight
and mobile phone
There may be scattering effects due to reflections from objects. These
reflections are considered in the simulation process
The channel response is given by
h(t; S, R) = h(k) (t; S, R)
where
S, R position of transmitter and receiver respectively
k reflection order
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LiFi integrated in streetlights
17. To calculate the kth reflection, we use the formula:
h (k) (t; S, R) = h (0) (t; S, {r, n, π/ 2, dr 2 }) ⊗ h k−1 (t; {r, n, 1}, R)
where
h (0) channel response for zeroth order reflection
n mode number, which specifies directionality of the source
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LiFi integrated in streetlights
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LiFi integrated in streetlights
Fig 5. Channel response h(t; S, R)
19. From the graph, it is observed that the reflections do not create any
problems for detection because the direct beam is much stronger than
others
The predominance of LOS beam between transmitter and receiver is
clearly observed
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LiFi integrated in streetlights
20. I. Transmitter
Transmitter and receiver have been implemented on two separate
FPGAs
The transmitter front-end, (the streetlight), is comprised of a Spartan
3E-xc3s500E FPGA, acting as the LiFi modulator
It also includes the LED driver circuit and a commercial high power
white LED as the light emitting source
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LiFi integrated in streetlights
21. The data stream received from PLC is delivered via an Ethernet port to the
FPGA and encoded
Then the modulated signal is fed to the LED driver circuit, which acts in
switching mode, varying the current of the streetlight LED
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LiFi integrated in streetlights
22. II. Receiver
The FPGA used in the receiver has a larger memory, in order to store
the performance measurements
The receiver front-end, at the phone’s camera, is equipped with a
Spartan 6-xc6slx16 FPGA
An external circuit has been designed and implemented to capture the
signal using an LDR (light-dependent resistor)
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LiFi integrated in streetlights
23. This digital signal is then delivered to the demodulator FPGA, which works
in the reverse manner of the modulator
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LiFi integrated in streetlights
Fig 6. Set up and prototype receiver
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LiFi integrated in streetlights
Fig 7. LiFi Hardware Architecture
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LiFi integrated in streetlights
26. Data rate greater than 28 Gigabytes per second; theoretically allowing HD
movies to be downloaded in 10 seconds
LiFi is expected to be ten times cheaper than Wi-Fi
Useful in electromagnetic sensitive areas such as in aircraft cabins,
hospitals and nuclear power plants without causing electromagnetic
interference
Potential downsides are short range, low reliability and high installation
costs
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LiFi integrated in streetlights
27. LED lightbulbs, or in this case our streetlamps, can be potentially
converted into a wireless router just by adding a small microchip.
It’s even more secure than WiFi, because light can’t permeate walls –
meaning potential hackers are unable to access your session.
The latest crop of smartphones are LiFi enabled, and can connect through
the use of their camera sensors. Older models and non-LiFi enabled
products will have to use a dongle until LiFi connectivity comes pre-
equipped in devices.
The LiFi industry is estimated to be worth around Rs. 5 Lakh Crores by
2021.
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References