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Boston University College of Engineering

Office of Communications44 Cummington StreetBoston, MA 02215(617) 353-9766

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Mike Seele Contact: Ron Rosenberg

BU College of Engineering BU Media Relations

(617) 353-9766 (617) 358-1240

[email protected] [email protected]

ILLUMINATE & COMMUNICATE

Boston University Partners in NSF Challenge to Create

Next Generation Wireless Network Using Visible Light

(BOSTON) Oct. 6, 2008 -- Boston Universitys College of Engineering is a partner

launching a major program, under a National Science Foundation grant, to develop the next

generation of wireless communications technology based on visible light instead of radio waves.

Researchers expect to piggyback data communications capabilities on low-power light emitting

diodes, or LEDs, to create Smart Lighting that would be faster and more secure than current

network technology.

Imagine if your computer, iPhone, TV, radio and thermostat could all communicate withyou when you walked in a room just by flipping the wall light switch and without the usual cluster

of wires, said BU Engineering Professor Thomas Little. This could be done with an LED-based

communications network that also provides light all over existing power lines with low power

consumption, high reliability and no electromagnetic interference. Ultimately, the system is

expected to be applicable from existing illumination devices, like swapping light bulbs for LEDs.

This initiative, known as the Smart Lighting Engineering Research Center

(http://smartlighting.bu.edu), is part of an $18.5 million, multi-year NSF program awarded to

Boston University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the University of New Mexico todevelop the optical communication technology that would make an LED light the equivalent of a

WiFi access point. This innovative alternative may one day replace most of todays lighting

devices.

Rensselaer and UNM will work on creating novel devices along with systems

applications to better understand the proliferation of smart lighting technologies plus materials

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BOSTON UNIVERSITY/SMARTLIGHTING/Page 2 of 3

needed for wireless devices to interface with the network. Together with BU, the three partners

will have 30 faculty researchers plus students, postdoctoral researchers and visiting industry

engineers as regular contributors to the research conducted by the Smart Lighting ERC.

Boston University researches will focus on developing computer networking applications,

notably the solid state optical technology that will form the networks backbone. Funding for the

BU portion of the program is expected to total about $1 million per year for the next 10 years

plus additional funding from industrial partners and possibly the formation of new businesses by

entrepreneurs.

This is a unique opportunity to create a transcendent technology that not only enables

energy efficient lighting, but also creates the next generation of secure wireless

communications, Little added. As we switch from incandescent and compact florescent lighting

to LEDs in the coming years, we can simultaneously build a faster and more secure

communications infrastructure at a modest cost along with new and unexpected applications.

Little envisions indoor optical wireless communications systems that use white LED

lighting within a room akin to the television remote control device to provide Internet

connections to computers, personal digital assistants, television and radio reception, telephone

connections and thermostat temperature control.

With widespread LED lighting, a vast network of light-based communication is possible,

Little noted. A wireless device within sight of an enabled LED could send and receive data

though the air initially at speeds in the 1 to 10 megabit per second range with each LED

serving as an access point to the network. Such a network would have the potential to offer

users greater bandwidth than current RF technology.

Moreover, since this white light does not penetrate opaque surfaces such as walls, there

is a higher level of security, as eavesdropping is not possible. LED lights also consume far less

energy than RF technology, offering the opportunity to build a communication network without

added energy costs and reducing carbon emissions over the long term.

"The innovative LED-based networking research that Smart Lighting ERC is conductinghas the potential to be extremely positive and disruptive to the market, said Inder Monga,

Leader, Advanced Networking Research at Nortel. "Nortel believes the era of hyperconnectivity

is upon us and the potential new applications that this visible light-based networking could

enable with its energy efficient qualities, privacy and its ubiquitous nature is very exciting."The ability to rapidly turn LED lights on and off so fast the change is imperceptible to

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BOSTON UNIVERSITY/SMARTLIGHTING/Page 3 of 3

the human eye is key to the technology. Flickering light in patterns enables data transmission

without any noticeable change in room lighting. And the technology is not limited to indoor lights;

its first real test may very well come outdoors, in the automotive industry.

This technology has many implications for automobile safety, Little said. Brake lights

already use LEDs, so its not a stretch to outfit an automobile with a sensor that detects the

brake lights of the car in front of it and either alerts an inattentive driver or actively slows the

car.

For more information, please see http://smartlighting.bu.edu.

About Boston University:

Founded in 1839, Boston University is an internationally recognized institution of higher

education and research. With more than 30,000 students, it is the fourth largest independent

university in the United States. BU consists of 17 colleges and schools along with a number of

multi-disciplinary centers and institutes which are central to the school's research and teaching

mission.

The BU College of Engineering offers bachelors, masters and doctoral degrees in the

departments of Biomedical, Mechanical, and Electrical and Computer Engineering. It also has

two interdisciplinary divisions focused on research and graduate education: the Division of

Systems Engineering; and the Division of Materials Science & Engineering.

About National Science Foundation ERCs:

The NSF ERCs share the goal of advancing knowledge, technology and innovations that

address significant societal problems and provide the workforce and technical foundation for

economic competitiveness. NSF will invest approximately $92.5 million in the centers over the

next five years. The five centers launched this fall initiate a third generation of NSF ERCs that

place increased emphasis on innovation and entrepreneurship, partnerships with small research

firms, and international collaboration and cultural exchange. Including the new awards, NSFsupports 15 ERCs in the areas of biotechnology and health care; energy, sustainability and

infrastructure; and microelectronics, sensing and information technology.

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Radio Frequency versus LED Optical Lighting

Attribute [email protected] GHz LED Optical

Security/Privacy Penetrates walls Does not penetrate walls, preventssnooping

Available bandwidthcapacity

Signals sent at same frequency caninterfere with one another and thuslimited by contention; signalsdegrade from peak

Light can be directed smart light soucan be tuned to adapt to differentenvironments and narrow footprints

Cost of additionalbandwidth spectrum

Very high when available None (yet)

Interference Self, other users on same frequencyslows transmission speed, ISMsources

Visible natural (sun) and man made li(non-LED lamps) slow transmissionspeeds

Multipath fading Destructive interference: RF wavesbounce off conductive surfaces andarrive at different times and/or areout of phase

Interference appears as noise. No signcancelling.

Path redundancy Achieved with multiple accesspoints

Achieved with multiple LEDs

Transmission Speed 100 megabits per second deployed Comparable, but with reuse of volumehigher aggregate speed.

Estimated comparativecost

< $20 < $2 (based on IrDA)

Smart Lighting Center at Boston University, smartlighting.bu.eduFor more information, please contact Linda Grosser at [email protected]

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SMART LIGHTING CENTER

Q & A

1Q. WHY ARE THE SMART LIGHTING ENGINEERING RESEARCH CENTER (ERC)

PROJECT AND ITS GOALS SIGNIFICANT?

1A. Replacing existing lighting with low-power, high-efficiency LEDs is significant initself due to the enormous energy savings and reduction in carbon emissions. Integratinglight emitting diodes (LEDS) with optical wireless communications is a new technologyparadigm that combines brighter light and longer life bulbs with ubiquitous networkaccess provided by the existing infrastructure light fixtures, power lines or networkcabling. The combination provides significant energy savings for lighting homes andoffices, almost limitless bandwidth for multiple users, greater security and privacy andmany desirable technical characteristics not offered in current radio-frequency (RF)communications, such as no electromagnetic interference. Note, in connecting the

physical world with the Internet, RF and optical free-space communications will coexist,each serving complementary and, in some cases, competitive services.

2Q.IS COMMUNICATING WITH VISIBLE LIGHT NEW AND DIFFERENT? DONTWE ROUTINELY USE INVISIBLE LIGHT DEVICES?

2A. People have used visible light to communicate throughout history, and more recently,such as crew members sending signals between ships at sea and the first working indooroptical communications system built in 1980 by IBM in Zurich, Switzerland. Thepromising technology faded with the initial rise in Internet usage and the success oflocal-area networking. On the wireless scene, clearly WiFi has become a dominant playerin interconnecting devices with wired networks. On a smaller scale, indoor invisibleoptical wireless technology has been around for a decade such as the infrared signalsfound in TV remote controls plus laser light used in point-to-point communicationsbetween buildings. Now ERC researchers at BU are taking the next big step unitingillumination with communication to create encoded light transmissions for a wide rangeof new and interesting applications. For example, you might turn on a white LED ceilinglamp, from a digital wall switch, to illuminate the room and simultaneously enable yourlaptop, computer, PDA even your thermostat to wirelessly receive data transmissions.Any device bathed by light might be enabled to connect to this new visible light network.

3Q. SO WHAT ARE THE REAL COST SAVINGS OF THIS NEW WIRELESS OPTICALTECHNOLOGY GOING TO BE?

3A. For starters, LED bulbs are high priced ($15 to $90 each), but that cost isconsiderably lower when measured against their longevity of 30,000 to 50,000 hours. Bycontrast, compact fluorescent (CF) bulbs cost $2 each and last about 5,000 hours versus1,000 hours for the vanishing incandescent bulbs that are $1 each. But with volumeproduction, and new materials and device development, these prices will fall.


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LED bulbs also produce less heat, which can save on air conditioning costs, are morerobust to shock and vibration, and unlike CF bulbs they contain no mercury.Communications uses the same medium light so there are no additional energy costsdue to RF transmission circuits. Ultimately, worldwide deployment of solid-state lightingsystems could result in financial savings of about $18 trillion dollars over a 10-year

period.

4Q. IS BOSTON UNIVERSITYS RESEARCH FOCUSED ON APPLICATIONS OF THISPROMISING TECHNOLOGY?

4A.Yes. BUs major contribution will be on LED communications and networkingsystems with additional work on nanomaterials and photonic crystals. The research ledby Thomas D.C. Little, PhD, Professor and Associate Chair, Graduate Studies, in theDepartment of Electrical and Computer Engineering includes constructing twonetworking testbeds to study potential indoor and outdoor scenarios for both line-of-siteand diffractive lighting. The indoor testbed will be a room with optical access points

designed to support interchangeable LED technologies to examine a variety ofmodulation schemes as they emerge from the core research. An outdoor testbed would befor dual-use lighting to study how light-based communication can improve safety intransportation systems. For example, equipping vehicles with LED-based communicationin headlights and brake lights supports automatic emergency braking to preventaccidents. Similar plans call for vehicles to receive traffic congestion information fromroadway signs and automatically pass the warnings to other vehicles.

5Q. WHO ELSE IS WORKING ON THIS SMART LIGHTING RESEARCH PROJECT?WHO IS THE SPONSOR AND HOW LONG IS THE INITIAL PROJECT?

5A. In addition to Boston University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the Universityof New Mexico comprise the three primary research universities who have been awardeda five year grant from the National Science Foundation with the possibility for a secondfive year renewal totaling $18.5 million. With anticipated contributions by industrial andnon-federal cash contributions, the Smart Lighting research program could receive $50million over 10 years.

Boston University will receive about $1 million per year including $750,000 annually inNSF funding. RPIs research focus is on solid state devices, materials and systems whileUNM will concentrate on nanomaterials and devices, supporting testbeds in bioimagingand displays.

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Thomas Little, BU lead and Smart-

lighting Center Associate Director,

with a consumer LED light bulb.

BU faculty investigators, Jeff Car-

ruthers, Thomas Little, and Hatice

Altug employing a prototype LED

transceiver for illumination and

communication.

BU graduate student, Peter Dib,

demonstrating free space optical

communications at a recent meetingwith industrial partners of the BU

Sensor Network Consortium.

For more information, please visit http://smartlighting.bu.edu,

or contact Linda Grosser at [email protected].

2008 Boston University



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Free Space Optical Communications andTheir Applications for the Future

1. Office Illustration

Dual use of LED lighting for illumination and communication

Ubiquitous lighting enables ubiquitous computing

2. Auto Illustration

The use of LED communications for improving automotive safety.

Directional communication with LED brake lights enables inter-vehiclecommunications and the relaying of active braking messages

3. Airplane Illustration

The use of LED communications for reducing ground collisions at airports

LEDs provide signaling among airport lighting infrastructure, groundvehicles and aircraft

4. Today and the Future Illustration

Deployment of wireless networking in the current and future scenarios.WiFi relies on network cabling and access points.

Future systems leverage existing wiring networking or power lines to

disseminate data to LED lighting as the new access point


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smart LED lighting

HD video streaming

wireless

thermostat

PDAprinter

laptop

clock

PDA

internet access

data(water me)

encoded data

(on/off)

active braking

message

relay messageto next car

2008BostonUniversity


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2 53

taxiing aircraft

oncomingaircraft

warning message

received in cockpit

localized warningmessage encoded

in LED light

CAT5

RJ45

WIFI

FUTURE

CAT5

BPL

120 V

TODAY

modulatedLED light



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