A team of scientists from Fudan University in Shanghai have made a fantastic idea a reality: a light bulb that generates its own Wi-Fi! The technology is called Li-Fi and from the scientists' tests, not only does it work, but its signal is much stronger than many home connections in China (and many other countries) right now.
The technology is not based on Wi-Fi radio waves, but on light frequencies. The lamp that was created has a microchip that generates the signal and the speeds reach up to 150 Mps! The "father" of Li-Fi (Light Fidelity) technology is Harald Haas, a professor of engineering at the University of Edinburgh who, as early as 2011, spoke about the possibility of programming LEDs, since they are supercapacitors with unlimited capacity for data. This ability of LEDs is being studied by many university institutions for various applications, such as the transmission of voice signals under water.
Computer science professor Chi Nan from Fudan University explains: "Today, wireless signal transmission equipment is expensive and inefficient. As in mobile telephony, millions of stations have been set up around the world to amplify the signal, but most of their energy is consumed in their cooling systems," and notes that the energy actually consumed for signal transmission is only 5%!
Thus, a lamp with a microchip that will exploit the frequencies of light, does not need cooling and the data transmission speed is surprisingly fast. Therefore, the entire system will be significantly cheaper than the technologies known so far. Of course, we are far from seeing Li-Fi on the market. The details of the production of the microchip have not yet been designed, while the devices that will use the data must also have similar technology.
The university has already built 10 prototypes of these bulbs and will be showcasing them at a trade show in China next month. Another technology we'd love to see on our devices very soon!
Source: digitallife.gr
