EU consortium announces project to commercialise LiFi

  

"ELIoT forms a closed value chain with partners representing the components, chipsets, systems and applications sectors and research institutes, working together on the commercialization of LiFi for the future IoT,” says Dr. Volker Jungnickel (Fraunhofer HHI) who serves as project coordinator.

ELIoT is funded under the EUs R&D programne Horizon 2020 receiving €6 million from the Public-Private Partnership ‘Photonics21’.

Partners include: Signify (formerly Philips Lighting), Nokia, MaxLinear, Deutsche Telekom, KPN, Weidmüller, LightBee, Oxford University, Eindhoven University of Technology and the two Fraunhofer Institutes Heinrich Hertz Institute HHI and FOKUS. More companies will shortly be added as associated partners.

The ELIoT consortium will explore a networked wireless communication technology operating in the previously unused light spectrum, besides Wi-Fi and cellular radio. As such, LiFi has many use cases for commercial, industrial or outdoor applications and could function well in environments where certain radio frequencies are not possible or allowed.

Higher network demands might come from software-controlled production, virtual and augmented reality and autonomous driving where LiFi could prove useful.