Passive visible light communications

The increasing number of portable electronics and Internet of Things (IoT) devices demand scalable, low-power, and versatile networks. The Radio Frequency (RF) band has long been the main carrier for communication technologies. For instance, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and LoRa are assigned specific RF bands and use matured techniques to avoid infringing...

SpectraLux: Towards Exploiting the Full Spectrum with Passive VLC

In recent years, the number of wireless applications has increased significantly, resulting in the radio bands becoming expensive and prone to interference. There is a new research area aiming at mitigating these issues by creating communication links using ambient light. This area, called passive-VLC, not only exploits the visible light...

A principled design for passive light communication

To take advantage of Visible Light Communication (VLC) for low-power applications, such as IoT tags, researchers have been developing systems to modulate (backscatter) ambient light using LC shutters. Various approaches have been explored for single-pixel transmitters, but without following a principled approach. This has resulted in either...