LiFi Attocell Networking – Taking the Small Cell Concept to a New Level

Dr. Harald Haas
Director, LiFi Research and Development Centre
The University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom

This talk will clarify the difference between visible light communication (VLC) and Light-Fidelity (LiFi). In particular, it will show how LiFi takes VLC further by using light emitting diodes (LEDs) to realise fully networked (cyber) secure wireless systems. Synergies are harnessed as luminaries become LiFi attocells resulting in enhanced wireless capacity providing the necessary connectivity to realise the Internet-of-Things (IoT), and contributing to the key performance indicators for the 5th generation of cellular systems (5G) and beyond. The talk will address key technologies from LiFi components to hybrid LiFi/Wireless-Fidelity (WiFi) networks to illustrate that LiFi attocells are not a theoretical concept any more, but at the cusp of real-world deployment. The talk will conclude with remarks on commercialization challenges of LiFi technologies.

Professor Harald Haas is the Chair of Mobile Communications and the Director of the LiFi Research and Development Centre, both at the University of Edinburgh. His main research interests are in optical wireless communications, hybrid optical wireless and RF communications, spatial modulation and interference coordination in wireless networks. He holds 31 patents and has more than 30 pending patent applications.

He introduced and coined the term spatial modulation and LiFi. In 2011, LiFi was listed among the 50 best inventions in TIME Magazine. He is co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of PureLiFi Limited. Dr. Haas was an invited speaker at TED Global 2011, and his talk, ‘Wireless Data from Every Light Bulb’ has been watched online more than 2.2 million times. He gave a second TED Global lecture in 2015 on the use of solar cells as LiFi data detectors and energy harvesters. This has been viewed online more than 1 million times. He has published 300 conference and journal papers including a paper in Science. He has co-authored ‘Principles of LED Light Communications Towards Networked Li-Fi’ published by the Cambridge University Press in 2015.