LED light source exactly how to transmit information make don't you?

Open the lamp, cell phone can have electricity and Internet, it sounds very cool, but the advanced technology has been in the laboratory environment, for the average person, how long before this project out of the lab, what kind of change will make our lives?

Dr Shen Guobin of Microsoft Asia research, as do indoor positioning research, in 2012 began to study in optical communication, is the indoor light source, how to determine the position of the people, in the last year, he won the world with the team's second game IPSN indoor positioning.

how is a light transmission of information?

as early as in 2004, IEEE journal have paper explained through the light-emitting diode ( Is the LED bulb) Provide wireless network connection methods, the principle of concrete is

the LED is a semiconductor chip, is not the same as the traditional filament is that chip can quickly switch in particular, for example, using an alternating current of the lamp is 60 hz, the human eye can't identify the lights flashing. In a close, the light is square wave, after modulation can transfer information, and the telephone we use radio communication.

the world many universities have related research projects, most of them are conducted in laboratory. In 2012, on the IEEE communications magazine, has published an article to visible light transmission rate of 96 MB/s paper. By the end of 2013, Shanghai's fudan university laboratory have been able to make a light power 1 w LED lamp bead, providing light four computers to the Internet, the highest rate of up to 3. 25 GBP per second, the average Internet rate of 150 MB per second.

Microsoft Asia research earlier also doing research in this field. And laboratory will pull the light transmission rate to the device peak limit try not too, want to study the possibility of this technology in ordinary electronic equipment, then his team in taobao bought cheap LCD panel, a few dollars of solar panels, circuit boards, and can be tested.

at present, Shen Guobin team studied how to use inverse reflector ( 复古, 反射器) , in fact is a mirror, will reflect the way back to the LED lamp light, formed the mutual communication between LED and electronic equipment. They can already do, under the switching frequency of the light 1 million, from the lights to downlink rate of 10 KB/s, and from equipment glance upward speed to zero. 5 kb / s。

in the Microsoft Asia research and development center, we saw this with cheaper components made of experiment do not need charging line, nor Wi - Fi signal, is only a piece of equipped with LCD screen, mirror similar to the size of a mobile device and solar panels. Direct light LED light bulb flashlight, equipment was lit up, and start to transmit data. LED lighting has become a common equipment energy source and information sources.

intelligent traffic signs, without charging iot devices try to imagine such a scene - — Light shone on the side of the road signs, signs can immediately give the vehicle navigation transport nearby roads, tell you to arrive the most smooth way; Morning a turn on the light, air detector can will tell you how outdoor air quality, temperature and humidity, and this detector display screen has been hanging in the head of a bed, do not need to charge, also do not need to connect Wi - Fi or bluetooth.

Shen Guobin of Microsoft Asia research, 'said Dr Intelligent street, do not need to recharge iot devices above may be they think of the future of optical communication. It sounds very beautiful, but now still stay in the theoretical stage. 'Our first thought is to discuss and product department, and see this thing is it possible to put Microsoft's big product blueprint, whether our design, or our ideas, as long as they can accept, we will be very happy. '

but it is not easy to achieve these actually, need to launch a good LED lamps and lanterns, also need to reverse the emitter of the electronic products to the market to sell at the same time. For a company, from technology to products alone, need to cooperate with related teams have too many.

how far the distance between the research and product?

in 1880, the Canadian inventor Alexander Bell found an interesting game by adjusting the change of the beam, voice signals, can carry out dialogue wireless - — This is the first human to realize wireless telephone, make use of the optical communication is visible. Bell as invention patent, no power, he also thinks that 'phone' light without any practical value.

in fact, no matter what the scientific research project, doing a product enterprise, is still the dominant product department. Products division has some problems to be solved, according to the development of technology is soon to use the product, and no related products plan, the basic research achievements into products is very difficult.

'in this case, the institute's mission is to make these cool technology by paper or internal demo for product department to understand, hope they do in the next product plan will consider the technology. 'Shen Guobin says.

editor: Bober

curiosity journal