Received: 3 September 2018 Revised: 5 November 2018 Accepted: 6 November 2018

DOI: 10.1002/itl2.83

LETTER

Leveraging light-fidelity for internet of light: State-of-the-art and

research challenges

Mithun Mukherjee1 Jaime Lloret2 Yunrong Lv1

1 Guangdong Provincial Key Lab of Petrochemical

Equipment Fault Diagnosis, Guangdong University In this article, we review state-of-the-art of Light-Fidelity (LiFi) technology. After-
of Petrochemical Technology, Maoming 525000, ward, we show how hybrid LiFi/WiFi system enhances the system throughput and
China
2 Instituto de Investigacion para la Gestion user’s quality-of-services in the heterogeneous networks. Finally, we highlight the
Integrada de Zonas Costeras, Universidad ongoing research efforts and open challenges toward internet of light with large-scale
Politécnica de Valencia, Valencia, Spain LiFi deployment in future wireless networks.
Correspondence
Mithun Mukherjee, Guangdong Provincial Key KEYWORDS
Lab of Petrochemical Equipment Fault Diagnosis,
Guangdong University of Petrochemical HetNet, LiFi, VLC, WiFi/LiFi
Technology, Maoming 525000, China.
Email: mithun.mukherjee@outlook.com

1 INTRODUCTION

To meet the huge demand for mobile data traffic, the cellular operators are going to increase the number of base stations
with ultra dense cells. However, at the same time, capital expenditure as well as operation expense increase in existing cellular
infrastructure.1 On the other hand, the available bandwidth of about 300 THz at higher frequencies in visible-light spectrum
has drawn a significant interest to go beyond radio frequencies for wireless communications. A tremendous amount of work has
been done in visible-light communications (VLC), which aims to replace the traditional cable for point-to-point communication.
Recently, the VLC standardization initiatives are being taken as a part of IEEE 802.15.7.2

1.1 What is LiFi?

Light-Fidelity (LiFi)—the term was first coined by Harald Haas in 20113 - transmits the wireless data through the modulation
of the visible light. Generally, LiFi uses LEDs for transmission with intensity modulation (IM) and the signal is detected by
using the principle of direct detection with a photodiode. LiFi extends the concept of VLC for highly secure, bi-directional,
and fully networked wireless communication systems. Unlike point-to-point communications in VLC, LiFi provides multipoint
communications with light emitting diodes (LEDs) as access points (APs) in the networks.4,5 In addition, user mobility and
multiuser access are supported by LiFi with attocells6,7 in the network.

1.2 Features and main characteristics of LiFi

The availability of huge bandwidth is one of the major advantages using VLC. Compared to the latest WiFi protocol (according
to the IEEE 802.11ad standard) provided by Wireless Gigabit Alliance (WiGig)8 where 7 Gbps data rate can be achieved,
an 3 Gbps data rate is observed with a single color incoherent LED.9 Further, about 100 Gbps data rate is shown by using
indoor illumination with laser diode.10 Recently, 224 Gbps wireless data rate is successfully achieved by the researchers at
the University of Oxford.11 Basically, the visible light spectrum lies in 380 to 780 nm wavelength. The operational wavelength
is generally determined by the applications and the environment. For example, micro-LED emits the light in 370 to 520 nm

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https://doi.org/10.1002/itl2.83
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Backbone connectivity by optical fibre

or power over Ethernet IEEE 802.03 af
Intelligent IP gateway

LiFi-enabled light source

Routers/switches Power
Wired connection junction box
Up/Down From power line
WiFi access points link

Bi-directional
communication

FIGURE 1 Hybrid LiFi/WiFi wireless network model. Depending on the channel state information, the static or mobile users can transmit and receive
wireless data via either LiFi access point or WiFi access point

wavelength whereas the resonant cavity LEDs have the emitting wavelength about 650 nm. Note that in the context of VLC,
LiFi is relatively a new technology. Recently, several companies initiative are observed. For example, pureLiFi12 brings LiFi to
the commercial market and France’s Oledcom13 aims to deploy LiFi products in the market.
Moreover, LiFi has several attractive features as follows. In fact, LiFi is a viable solution where electromagnetic radiation
causes an adverse impact on the places like an airplane, spaceship, medical equipment, petrochemical industries, oil refineries.14
Besides, VLC is widely applied in accurate indoor localization leveraging visible-light positioning (VLP).15 In fact, it is often
observed that the radio frequency signal has poor performance for localization inside a building due to multipath propaga-
tion. Therefore, LiFi has a considerable potential in enabling high-accuracy indoor positioning and orientation estimation of
mobile devices. Some of the examples are self-navigation in a supermarket with accurate product search and targeted customer
advertising.16 Moreover, several studies have shown the significant interest in using VLC in underwater communications,17
where the traditional acoustic signal has a very low data rate. Beside, as VLC is widely adopted in intelligent transport systems18
for the vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications, LiFi has a huge potential in several vehicular applica-
tions such as collision avoidance and cooperative communications. Since light cannot pass through the wall, security is well
preserved for the wireless data in a physical space. Nevertheless, many researchers have already either answered or experi-
mentally validated several misconceptions regarding LiFi technology. For example, although line-of-sight (LoS) component
contributes a significant amount of energy in the received signal, light reflects from wall and surface, thus LiFi is not strictly
LoS technology.9,19–21 There is a general belief that the LED must be always-on for LiFi; however, LiFi can operate at as low
as 60 lux, whereas, in general, at least 400 lux is required for reading in a room.22 Moreover, as the operating frequency in LiFi
is above 1 MHz, the high flicking-rate is not even detected by human eye.23 Besides, the existing light infrastructure would not
be replaced entirely for LiFi deployment, only LiFi devices are to be coupled with the light sources.24

2 STATE-OF-THE-ART

Mobile operators estimated that 80% of the mobile data traffic belong to indoor wireless communications.25 Therefore, the
co-existence of LiFi and WiFi has a huge potential to reduce the overall burden on RF resource blocks. In fact, the free radio
frequency (RF) resource blocks can further enhance the quality-of-services (QoS) to the end-users. The large number of LEDs
allows dense deployment of LiFi APs. However, inter-cell interference7 limits the system throughput in attocell. In addition,
blockage,26 orientation angle,27,28 and shadowing cause nonuniform coverage of the LiFi cells. The hybrid LiFi/WiFi25,29–32
system model (as shown in Figure 1) is proposed with an aim to improve both coverage and average data rate compared to
the standalone wither WiFi or LiFi. In several cases, it is observed that the electric appliances and undesired radio signal often
cause interference to the VLC using power line communications (PLC). Therefore, a separate wire-line G.hn33 or polymer
optical fiber (POF)34 is suggested with a device, called light rose, as a remote radio light head (RRLH). This architecture
allows user to select either power over Ethernet using IEEE 802.3af standards or POF to deliver data traffic via the RRLH.
The state-of-the-art and major research contributions to meet the main objectives such as system throughput, data offloading,
cost, security, and scalability are summarized in Table 1. Although several asymmetric system models, WiFi and LiFi are
MUKHERJEE ET AL . 3 of 6

TABLE 1 State-of-the-art and research contributions

Objective Explanation Related work

System throughput Improvement in system throughput is considered as one of
the exciting features in LiFi combined with RF.
Bandwidth Huge bandwidth is available LiFi.
Data offloading The traffic data can be offloaded using LiFi.
Cost Cost becomes an important issue for large-scale deployment.
Heterogeneity LiFi/WiFi networks are expected to support different types
of end-users.
Security LiFi provides enhanced security and privacy since visible
light cannot pass through the wall.
Scalability LiFi can efficiently scale to a large number of access points.
Hybrid LiFi/WiFi,25,29–31 and access point selection based on fuzzy
logic35 and learning-aided36
3 Gbps using single color incoherent LED,9 ≊100 Gbps data rate with
laser diode,10 224 Gbps wireless data.11
Load balancing,29,37 learning-aided network association,36 channel
aggregation,25 blockage and channel statistics,26 shadowing, receiving
orientation angle27,28
OpenVLC,38 prototype/testbed,39 photovoltaic modules for outdoor
application,40 light rose,34 pureLiFi,12 and France’s Oledcom13 .
Hybrid LiFi/WiFi,25,29–31 pureLiFi,12 and France’s Oledcom,13
OpenVLC.38
Packet falsification and replay attacks41
Load balancing and handover scheme29,37

separately considered as uplink and downlink, respectively, LiFi and WiFi (or RF) can be used for both uplink and downlink
in the heterogeneous networks.
However, the limited coverage5 (eg, 34.2 m2 ) of the LiFi AP restrict the mobility management of the end-users. Thus, in
a hybrid LiFi/WiFi networks, the frequent handover between APs results throughput reduction. Wu et al.37 and Wang et al.29
suggested low overhead-based handover scheme to address the user mobility in hybrid LiFi/WiFi networks. In addition, AP
selection is also challenging task in hybrid LiFi/WiFi networks. Fuzzy logic-based35 and learning-aided36 approaches are sug-
gested to select the AP in the hybrid network. Furthermore, Alshaer and Haas introduced an autonomic resource slicing (such
as network virtualization) scheme42 to realize autonomic management and configuration of virtual APs in attocells.
Recently, Internet of radio light project (IoRL),43 one of the 21 new 5G-Infrastructure Public-Private Partnership projects,
aims to provide a safe, secured, customizable building network that might be able to deliver a throughput (>10Gbps) within the
buildings. On top of the radio-light networks, leveraging network function virtualization, the cloud computers can be placed
on the cloud network or home cell site.34 The software-defined networks manage the flow of the data in radio-light networks.
Besides, the application programmers interface allows the third-party service providers to write specialized network applications
to manage multimobile network operators.

3 OPEN CHALLENGES FOR INTERNET O F LIGHT

It is foreseen that in Internet of Light (IoL),34,44 almost every light sources—particularly, LEDs—enable end-user devices
to seamlessly connect with each other with the existing cellular RF infrastructure. Indoor and outdoor light in office, home,
medical, industries, airline, vehicular, and street will allow the objects to be connected with Internet harnessing the attractive
features of visible light communications. The state-of-the-art hybrid LiFi/WiFi and LiFi/Cellular models aim to improve the
average data rate, connectivity, scalability, and outage probability compared to standalone architecture. In the following, we
have summarized the open research issues that need to be addressed to realize IoL with LiFi as:

3.1 Fundamental hardware limitation for LEDs

In general, AC-to-DC rectifier (or bridge rectifier) is used to drive the LEDs and regulate the current supply. Therefore, an
additional circuitry is required to bypass the analog signal when PLC is used as a backbone. Moreover, the bandpass filter is
essential to minimize the interference occurred during the transmission over PLC. In addition, apart from well-known intensity
modulation, color intensity modulation, color shift keying, pulse amplitude modulation with different intensity are used; how-
ever, the chromatic shift and low range of optical intensity are significant issues14 in high bandwidth transmitter for the LEDs
in LiFi.

3.2 Upgrading the existing light infrastructure

A considerable potential is observed in the adaptation of hybrid LiFi/WiFi in the commercial market due to the substantial
existing light infrastructure. Nevertheless, in one hand, the light industries must need to upgrade the light fixture to either com-
bine optical fiber or use PLCs as well as adopt intensity modulation and direct detection.14,45 On the other hand, the additional
4 of 6 MUKHERJEE ET AL .

hardware design due to the installation of high-speed photo-diode receivers increases the operational cost as well as reduces the
robustness of the system. Therefore, both the light industries and service providers (including equipment suppliers and mobile
network operators) must come to a common platform for the large-scale LiFi commercialization.

3.3 Data offloading

It is expected that LiFi will reduce the traffic overhead by offloading the data.26 However, several issues such as resource
allocation and end-user’s requirements in terms of latency and data rate must be considered for data offloading in hybrid
LiFi/WiFi systems.

3.4 Handover
Compared to the femtocell and picocell in RF network, the size of attocell is much smaller in LiFi technology. Thus, due to a
large number of mobile devices, the user mobility5 cause frequent handover between attocells, resulting handover overhead29
between central unit and user end device. The handover overhead that rapidly increases with the number of connected end
devices is a major issue in LiFi technology.

3.5 AP allocation
Shadowing and blockage have adverse impact on LiFi communication.29 In addition, severe weather condition, ambient light,
and sunlight play important role in time varying channel state information. Thus, how to select the AP in hybrid LiFi/WiFi model
is an critical challenge for central unit to meet system throughput and end user’s QoS requirements. In addition, learning-aided36
AP selection and resource slicing (virtualization) scheme42 for virtual APs configuration and management are possible future
direction.

3.6 Interference mitigation

LiFi operates in a different spectra that is used by RF networks, thus, there is no interference form each other in hybrid LiFi/WiFi
networks. Recently, optical space division multiple access using an angle diversity transmitter, combined with optical time
division multiple access is being used for multiple access and multiuser scenarios5 ; however, LiFi still suffers from intercell
interference from neighboring attocells. Note that transmit precoding5 somehow mitigates the interuser interference, interference
cancellation techniques must be investigated in LiFi networks.

3.7 Low-cost LiFi devices

OpenVLC,38 a software-defined low-cost platform for VLC, has become an important starter kit for the networked LiFi.
Although, several companies such as pureLiFi12 and Oledcom13 are deploying LiFi, the design of low-cost LiFi device will be
an important issue for large-scale deployment. Moreover, multicolor luminance in LiFi would be another research direction to
increase the system throughput.

3.8 Standardization
As there will be a million of connected devices in LiFi-enabled heterogeneous networks, standardization activities must consider
the compatibility and connectivity issues. IEEE 802.15.7, which is defined for short-range optical wireless communications,
divides the physical layer (PHY) into three types, namely PHY-I, PHY-II, and PHY-III with different modulation and data rate
specifications. Nevertheless, a more complete and standardized specification is required to realize IoL with the VLC.

3.9 Security
Compared to RF, a more secure communication is possible with LiFi as visible light cannot pass through wall; however, lack
of security protocol may lead to malicious attack41 and compromise the user privacy. Thus, the PHY security along with network
and medium access layer security must be addressed in IoL. It is worthwhile to note that network security architecture is briefly
introduced in IoRL project∗ to address the secure communications and to maintain user privacy in radio-light networks.

∗
https://5g-ppp.eu/iorl/
MUKHERJEE ET AL . 5 of 6

4 CONCLUSIONS

LiFi technology has the potential to support huge bandwidth, high data rate, and low-cost wireless networking compared to the
standalone RF technologies. To realize IoL, a large number of ubiquitous wireless devices, including wearable devices, can
be seamlessly connected to the internet by harnessing the LiFi combined with current RF infrastructures. Basically, IoL will
combine the benefits of large-scale light industries with existing wireless communication for a more connected, high speed,
and seamless flow of the wireless data between a wide range devices.

ORCID

Jaime Lloret https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0862-0533

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How to cite this article: Mukherjee M, Lloret J, Lv Y. Leveraging light-fidelity for internet of light: State-of-the-art and
research challenges. Internet Technology Letters 2019;2:e83. https://doi.org/10.1002/itl2.83