Visible light or infrared? Modulating LiFi for dual operation in the visible and infrared spectra

Abstract

Light-Fidelity (LiFi) has emerged in the last few years as a promising technology for alleviating the stringent demand of wireless data services. Prior works have considered LiFi operating either in the visible light or infrared spectrum. Each spectrum band has its own advantages: visible light allows leveraging existing infrastructure for communication, while infrared is not affected by degradation in presence of light dimming. In this work, we propose a modulation scheme that efficiently uses both spectra, and present a simple, low cost, yet efficient modulation technique that retains the benefits of both bands. We prototype our solution by creating an extended version of OpenVLC, and we experimentally show its robust performance in communication under different dimming conditions. We make the implemented system publicly available to the research community.