Visible Light Communications for Industrial Applications—Challenges and Potentials

Yousef Almadani*, David Plets, Sander Bastiaens, Wout Joseph, Muhammad Ijaz, Zabih Ghassemlooy, Sujan Rajbhandari

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

63 Citations (Scopus)
55 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Visible Light Communication (VLC) is a short-range optical wireless communication technology that has been gaining attention due to its potential to offload heavy data traffic from the congested radio wireless spectrum. At the same time, wireless communications are becoming crucial to smart manufacturing within the scope of Industry 4.0. Industry 4.0 is a developing trend of high-speed data exchange in automation for manufacturing technologies and is referred to as the fourth industrial revolution. This trend requires fast, reliable, low-latency, and cost-effective data transmissions with fast synchronizations to ensure smooth operations for various processes. VLC is capable of providing reliable, low-latency, and secure connections that do not penetrate walls and is immune to electromagnetic interference. As such, this paper aims to show the potential of VLC for industrial wireless applications by examining the latest research work in VLC systems. This work also highlights and classifies challenges that might arise with the applicability of VLC and visible light positioning (VLP) systems in these settings. Given the previous work performed in these areas, and the major ongoing experimental projects looking into the use of VLC systems for industrial applications, the use of VLC and VLP systems for industrial applications shows promising potential.
Original languageEnglish
Article number2157
Pages (from-to)1-38
Number of pages38
JournalElectronics
Volume9
Issue number12
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 16 Dec 2020

Keywords

  • Industrial communications
  • LiFi
  • Localization
  • VLC
  • VLP
  • Visible light positioning

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