Hardware Requirements of Li-Fi Technology:

Li-fi (Light Fidelity), a Visible Light Communications is the advanced form of Wi-Fi technology.
The Li-Fi follows the same working procedure as Wi-Fi except using light spectrum instead of
radio frequencies. They can provide 1000 times more bandwidth than Wi-Fi which will meet the
increased requirement of internet (increasing by 60% per year). Li-Fi will be integral part of
wireless network i.e. 5G. Lifi will use our existing light infrastructures to provide high speed,
secure communications. It can be used everywhere like hospitals, flights because it does not
interface with radio frequencies. A successful installation of lifi requires the following
hardwares:

 A router
 An Access Point
 A Li-Fi Dongle
 Infrared Uplink

A router:

A router is a prime requirement for both Wifi and lifi. It’s

one and only purpose is to bring internet to our workplace that is
provided by our Internet Service Provider (ISP).

An Access Point:

This is the second most important hardware of Li-Fi. Access points are connected to
routers with a Ethernet cables and further connected to Li-
Fi enabled LED bulbs. They are middleman between router
and Li-Fi dongle. They modulate the LED bulbs at very high
speed.
Li-Fi Dongle:

Lifi dongle is USB 2.0

supporting device connected to our
computers. When a constant current is
provided to LED light bulb, stream of photons are emitted from the bulb which is observed as
visible light. After that the fluctuation in the intensity of light is detected by photo detector in
dongle which converts light signal to electrical current and our computer is able to use internet.
The download and upload of data is done by dongle. This task is done by a small, light-weighted
device called Li-Fi dongle.

Infrared Uplink:

We know that Li-Fi is bidirectional exchange of data. It

can perform both download and upload task. The Lifi hardware
set consist of infrared uplink device connected to access point
that uploads data to internet sent by Lifi dongle.

Working procedure of Light Fidelity

The working procedure of LiFi is very simple to understand. Internet is carried to computer
through some channels. The data packets is carried down from internet or server by router.
After that access points start its task by modulating the intensity of light at very high speed. The
modulation in intensity occurs in such a vague speed that it cannot be noticed by human eye.
The modulation of intensity of light results LED to change its state continuously in the form of
‘on’ and ‘off’. Here ‘on’ and ‘off’ state refers to download and upload of data. After the data is
arrived to access point, it transfers data to Li-fi dongle (photo detectors in dongle convert light
to electrical energy) via light spectrum. This whole process is called download. Again, the
dongle uploads the data to internet by sending it to access point via infrared uplink. This whole
process can be explained with the help of following picture:-

Fig: Working Procedure of Lifi in mobile phone

Here, the Lifi dongle is integrated inside mobile phone reducing its size in the form of tiny chip.