Fraunhofer creates wireless connection of 230Mbps via LED lighting

The Fraunhofer Institute has refined the technology to use LED lighting for wireless signals to enable speeds of 230Mbps. Users will soon receive a broadband connection when they switch on the light.

The German scientists use LED lamps for visible frequency wireless or visible light communication technology, because they can accurately flicker this type of lighting. The signal is encoded in the lightning-fast, light adjustments of the light emission. Making all the LED lights in a room flicker in the same way, imperceptible to the human eye, creates a wireless broadband network.

The technology offers a number of advantages over traditional Wi-Fi networks, lays Jelena Vučić of the Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications explains: “The advantage is that you use light that is already there.” Another advantage is that the wireless signal travels outside the busy radio spectrum and thus does not suffer from the bandwidth limitations of traditional Wi-Fi frequencies. In addition, the signal does not extend beyond the light itself and thus remains safely within the walls of a room.

Normal LEDs have a bandwidth of only a few megahertz, but by filtering all frequencies except for the blue part, Vučić’s research team was able to significantly increase the bandwidth. In the laboratory, they achieved a speed of 230Mbps with a network of a few LEDs and with a few adjustments to the modulation technique, the speed can be doubled, claims Vučić. Fraunhofer’s team will present its findings at the Optical Fiber Communication Conference, in late March in San Diego.

The end of January demonstrated Fraunhofer said that a speed of 500Mbps is feasible, but that was with a single LED over a very short distance.