Software-centric Visible Light Communication for the Internet of Things

Visible Light Communication (VLC) based on LEDs for light emission and reception can be realized using simple components, delegating many of the "hard" problems to software. We present a software-centric approach that supports networking a wide range of devices -- devices that include only simple single LEDs (such as wearables, toys, consumer electronics) as well as LED light bulbs that run Linux and provide a VLC communication fabric (room-area network). One of the benefits of the software-centric approach is easy integration into distributed applications - a necessary condition for a pervasive communication infrastructure for the Internet of Things that requires a wide range of services (localization, time, authentication, etc).

Speaker: Thomas Gross, ETH, Zurich