Our days with terrible WiFi signals and unstable Internet connection are already numbered. There’s now a Li-Fi system that is said to be 100 times faster than the current networks.
Researchers from Eindhoven University of Technology have developed a light-based system that relies on central ‘light antennas’ that beam rays of different wavelengths to wireless devices, directing the rays of light supplied by an optical fiber. It also doesn’t need power and maintenance.
A great benefit of this new system is that networks will not get jammed by several competing devices and hence making wireless networks more secure.
Despite the movement out of the light antenna’s line of sight, the user can still connect with his or her smartphone or tablet because there will be another light antenna that takes over. The network tracks the precise location of every wireless device using its radio signal transmitted in the return direction.
An option to change the direction of the ray of light is also possible by adjusting the wavelength.
Users do not have to share data capacity due to the fact that devices are assigned different wavelengths by the same light antenna. There is also no interference from other networks.
Source: Giphy
With regards to the data capacity, the researchers were able to use infrared light with wavelengths of 1500 nanometers and higher, able to have frequencies that are thousands of times higher than the current frequencies of Wi-Fi radio signal at 2.5 or 5 gigahertz.
This light has a frequency of 200 terahertz, making the data capacity of the light rays much larger.
That explains the peak speed of 42.8 Gbit/s over a distance of 2.5 meters – far beyond the speed of the best W-Fi system available which can only reach up to 300 Mbit/s, or a hundred times less than the speed per ray of light achieved by the new study.
So far, the researchers led by Joanne Oh have only used the light rays to download, and continue using radio signals for uploading as it typically requires far less capacity.
However, we still have to wait for about five years before we could use this system into our disposal.
Source: Eindhoven University of Technology
