Towards 100 Gigabit Wireless Networking by Light (Go-by-Light) (Ext.)

This is an extension of the Fellowship: 'Tackling the looming spectrum crisis in Wireless Communication'.

Future economic success is inevitably tied to advancements in digital technologies. An essential component in the mix of digital technologies is digital communications, as also reflected in the EPSRC delivery plan under the heading of 'Connected Nation'. Wireless networking is fundamental to the achievement of 'connectivity'. According to a Cisco White Paper ("Cisco Visual Networking Index: Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast Update, 2016-2021, White Paper", February 09, 2017), mobile data traffic has increased 18 times in the last 5 years alone. This corresponds to a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 78% with a further sevenfold increase expected between 2016 and 2021, reaching 49.0 exabytes per month by 2021. This growth is fueled by new wireless services on smartphones such as augmented and virtual reality and mobile TV. In addition, new networking paradigms such as the Internet of Things or more generally machine type communication will become increasingly important, especially to support operation of autonomous systems. This means that by assuming an average CAGR of 60% of global mobile data traffic, in 20 years from now a 500 MHz radio frequency (RF) channel allocated to a current RF system would need a bandwidth of 6 THz in 2037. The entire RF spectrum, which is currently used for wireless communications, only amounts to 0.3 THz.

LiFi adds to the RF spectrum the nm-wave infrared and visible light spectrum with a combined bandwidth of 780 THz. This unregulated spectrum has the potential to make wireless communications future-proof. While the current Fellowship enabled ground-breaking research on achievable data rates using light emitting diodes (LEDs) - as the recently demonstrated 15 Gbps data rates from a single device - further substantial research efforts are required to unlock the full potential of the entire infrared and visible light spectrum, and to make LiFi an integral part of the fabric of wireless communications. Furthermore, research to date has primarily focused on advancing link level performance in static transmitter and receiver arrangements. In order to realise the vision of a world fully connected by light where car headlights, street lights, lights in offices, factories and homes including computer screens and indicator lights of home appliances, form the wireless networks of the future fundamental research is required to ensure that a terminal remains connected when it moves, and that interference generated when a large number of simultaneous transmissions are ongoing is mitigated effectively, or that random blockage does not cause link failure. Lastly, there are a number of challenges that come with the large increase in LiFi access points. Specifically, the many access points must be connected to the network backbone via suitable backhaul connections. LiFi systems that are composed of laser transmitters and solar cells as data receivers are envisaged to be a key for the backhaul challenge. It is these latter considerations which will also facilitate the eradication of the rural divide which currently prevents 60% of the world population from accessing digital communications.

There are presently no viable solutions to these fundamental problems, and this is where this Fellowship extension comes in by taking the current internationally leading achievements to the next level. LiFi is now at the stage at which WiFi was 20 years ago, and the work undertaken in the next few years will be crucial in making this technology a success.

Go-by-Light will contribute to social and economic prosperity by helping to create a world which is better connected. It will do so by developing further a technology which has the potential to provide future-proof wireless communications which is faster, safer, more environmentally friendly and available to all.

This Fellowship extension is envisaged to create impact in the following eight areas:
1. Demonstrator systems: The Fellowship extension will create practical systems to showcase innovations, to establish proof-of-principle, and to act as reference designs. These will fast-track the delivery of research results to industry, via licensing and/or the creation of spin-out companies.
2. Involvement in targeted events: LiFi will enable 'light as a service' and will lead to the formation of a single new industry from two currently largely independent industries: i) the wireless communications industry and ii) the lighting industry. Regularly there are independent market studies all of which forecast this to be a multi-billion-dollar industry in 5-7 years.
3. Research publications: The dissemination of our research results will stimulate future research and development, both in academia and industry. The applicant is regularly invited to give keynotes at conferences, or to submit papers. He will use these prestigious invitations to showcase and magnify key results of this Fellowship extension.
4. Public engagement: Haas will use a variety of platforms to communicate his research to the general public, increasing awareness of LiFi and fueling its wider uptake over time. This will include various media outlets as well as selected high profile public events.
5. Direct engagement with industry: Haas will ensure a two-way flow of ideas with current and new national and international partners and provide a forum for the establishment of commercial impact pathways.
6. Standardisation activities: It is very likely that LiFi standardisation activities will become increasingly important during the time of the Fellowship extension, and as the leading research group in the field the applicant plans to take a leading role in international standardisation committees direct or through industrial partners.
7. Spin out companies and licensing: The applicant has considerable direct experience in start-up company formation, and he will continue to look for appropriate opportunities. He, for example, has founded pureLiFi Ltd from his past work. The Fellowship output will provide unique solutions in areas which are not or merely sparsely researched, but which have the potential to solve global challenges and to contribute to future data driven digital societies. It is, thus, anticipated that a large number of new intellectual property rights (IPR) will be generated and that a number of new start up opportunities will arise.
8. Developing leaders: Haas' group is currently composed of 10 PhD students and 5 PDRAs, and all have developed skills that the emerging LiFi-industry demands. Moreover, towards the end of the Fellowship extension, Haas will explore the possibility to develop online course material for comprehensive open online courses (MOOC) as he experiences regular keen interest in LiFi technology from around the globe.