Through the previous posts Visible
Light Communications were dealt from different points of view. The necessity
for alternatives in order to complement RF wireless communications and expand
their capabilities was stressed; potential applications that are currently
using the RF spectrum or completely new applications were presented, the pros
and cons of the technology were marked. Then after a short and simplified
technology description we moved into standardization issues in order to define
and understand the necessity for standards and how they affect our everyday
life. Lastly some more specific topics like the history of standardization in
VLC and the commercialization and market perspectives where dealt.
As it was underlined VLC is a new,
promising technology with a main orientation of complementing RF
communications. Some drawbacks are there but many advantages as well. Finally,
what is going to be the fate of this technology? Is it going to be established
as a new, advanced and accessible to everyone technology or is it going to stay
in the laboratories as a part of research history? And if it succeeds, when is
this decisive bounce in the market going to take place? What will be the
critical factors for these? Personally I believe that VLC will penetrate the
market. Sooner or later, that will depend on the research community and its
advances and industry’s initiative, decisiveness and willingness for exposure
to risks. In the future, visible light communications will complement and even
replace RF communications in some occasions that is practically feasible.
Starting exactly from what is
technically and practically feasible VLC is considered as a rather young
technology. Despite this, it is quite competitive with certainly more mature RF
technologies in terms of data rates for instance and much space for
improvements exists while regarding other properties is much more superior, as
for example power consumption. In my opinion in the near future more
improvements will come and VLC will have an edge over the existing wireless
communication technologies so there will be good incentives for consumers to
adopt them. On the other hand some fundamental limitations such as range will
always constrain their use only for certain applications.
Moving to our ever increasing needs,
a new complementary technology is a “must”. Data traffic is doubling every year
thus soon RF communications will be unable to accommodate them. VLC is the most
convincing candidate until now. Solutions like using other unlicensed bands
such as the one at 60GHz are investigated but VLC is actually a more long term
solution with many advantages compared to RF. VLC is a quite simple technology.
Not much hardware in needed and not too much power for operating. Moreover
nowadays a big focus is given on energy consumption. LEDs are a big step
forward and given that they can be a very efficient and cheap data source for
VLC, we can almost consider that the infrastructure is there and waits to be
exploited. This is a significant point as negligible resources, money and time,
should be spend on building new infrastructures and installing them for
enabling VLC use. This also yields that even for domestic use VLC should be very
affordable when the equipment becomes commercially available.
Commercialization seems to be one
of the main problems for now. Lighting and mobile devices industries have to
find a point of intersection in order to initiate and give a boost to the
massive use of VLC. I strongly believe they will, as both of them will profit
from such cooperation. It is a win – win situation. The most probable scenario
is to introduce some low data rate applications that can be supported by
already existing devices in order to achieve an acceptance and then start
equipping their mobile devices with VLC technology thus forcing the penetration
to the market. For other applications like vehicle to vehicle communication
things seem to be more difficult and complicated. I have my doubts how this
could work out and if indeed will yield any significant advantages over RF
communications. Data rates needed are low and as road safety for these
applications is the main concern, RF communications seem adequate while VLC
would suffer from inherent limitations like very high attenuation due to fog,
rain etc. that could cause link failures thus safety issues. Furthermore the
incentives for manufacturers or consumers don’t seem so strong in order to
force VLC spread in this market sector, at least for the moment.
Another important factor will be
the integration/hybridization of some applications. For example Li – Fi is not
destined to replace Wi – Fi but if they coexist and interact an optimum point
can be reached as the advantages of both technologies can be combined and exploited.
Or GPS (Global Positioning System) can be extended for indoor use thus
increasing its range but also its accuracy. This integration is assigned to
standardization organizations which must ensure the compatibility between
different technologies thus helping new ones to enter the market.
Some small steps have already been
done. IEEE 802.15.7 standard is available and it offers satisfying
specifications and some commercial products are available (for example
Fraunhofer HHI offers commercially available plug and play solutions). Research
and standardization communities along with industry will define if VLC will
become a widespread everyday used technology or not. VLC have all the
qualifications to become that but will they?
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