Consortia and Standardization History of Visible Light Communications

“Visible light communications seems

to be a solution searching for a problem”

Rick Roberts, Research Scientist, Intel Labs, Oregon

In 2001 the RONJA (Reasonable Optical Near Joint Access, http://ronja.twibright.com/) free space optic device at Czech Republic became the first device to transmit 10Mbps wirelessly using beams of light with a range of 1.4 kilometers. 

Two years later, November of 2003, numerous companies (NEC, Sony, Toshiba, Casio, Samsung, Sumitomo etc.) from various industries (lighting, electric power, electronics etc.) decided to form a consortium, named Visible Light Communications Consortium (VLCC), in order to realize safe, ubiquitous telecommunication systems using visible light through the activities of market research, promotion and standardization (http://www.vlcc.net/e/index.html). After four years of work VLCC created and proposed two visible light standards, JEITA (Japan Electronics and Information Technology industries Association) CP – 1221: Visible Light Communication System Standard and CP – CP1222: Visible Light ID System Standard. The former aims in preventing the interference between optical communication equipment and defining the minimum requirements for VLC applications. JEITA CP – 1222 standard’s motivation was the position detection for various reasons. For instance the limited use of GPS indoors due to interference can be increased by receiving data from indoor light sources thus improving its accuracy and range, or the provision of information regarding traffic or merchandise according to user’s location.

The three year, EU – funded OMEGA project (http://www.ict-omega.eu/home.html) was launched in 2008 seeking to develop standards for home applications using visible and infrared light. The project consortium consisted of many European universities and industrial partners such as France Telecom, Thomson, Siemens, Fraunhofer Heinrich – Hertz Institute.

IEEE 802.15.7 Visible Light Communication Task Group (http://www.ieee802.org/15/pub/TG7.html) which was established by industry, research institutes and universities set their kick off meeting in January 2009. The goal was to define a standard for low – speed medium range communications for intelligent traffic systems and high – speed short – range communications for fixed and mobile terminals using visible light. IEEE standard 802.15.7: Short – Range Wireless Optical Communication Using Visible Light was the first official outcome of the group.

The IEEE 802.15.7 and VLCC are consortiums completely focus on visible light communications. Even though Li – Fi consortium (http://www.lificonsortium.org/index.html) is not such but it is rather focused on communications with infrared light based in laser technology, I believe it worth making a reference to it. Light Fidelity Consortium was established in 2011 by Fraunhofer IPMS, IBSENtelecom and Supreme Architecture and tries to anticipates needs and create solutions by coordination with standardization groups and other industry organizations.

Lastly, in November of 2011, OPTICWISE (http://opticwise.uop.gr/) established and funded as a COST Program (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) action for increasing the scientific understanding and technical knowledge in the optical wireless communication field which remains yet quite unexplored and shows great potential. In the framework of OPTICWISE there is also an application – driven special interest group, amongst others, focused on VLC.