The goal of our project is to develop a system of wireless data transfer using visible light communication (VLC) or Li-Fi.
Wireless data transfer is a key component of communication between the numerous devices that surround us today. With the advent of IoT and smart-devices, the wireless networks that support them also need to scale up proportionally. Current wireless networks such as Wi-fi and cellular data are based on data transmission using radio waves. When the number of devices increases, the fixed bandwidth makes data transmission slower as radio waves are a small part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Networks based on radio waves are also susceptible to security threats since radio waves can penetrate walls. In places like hospitals, airports, military bases and petrochemical plants, radio waves are intentionally interfered with so that data transfer is restricted. With our capstone project, we want to address some of the above key technical challenges since recent research predicts visible light communication to have high transmission speeds, higher bandwidth than radio waves, suitability in areas sensitive to electromagnetic interference and increased security since visible light does not penetrate walls.
Our minimum viable product will include two-way communications between multiple FPGAs using LEDs and photodiodes.