The wireless network developed by researchers at Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands.
New wireless Internet based on infrared rays.
The wireless data comes from a few central ‘light antennas’, which can be mounted on the ceiling, that are able to precisely direct the rays of light supplied by an optical fibre.
The system is simple and, in principle, cheap to set up, by ‘firing’ wireless date from a few central light antennas - which could be mounted on ceilings - which are able to direct the rays of light to the devices.
Since there are no moving parts,maintenance is free and even doesn’t need any power.
The futuristic network tracks the precise location of every wireless device using its radio signal transmitted in the return direction.
Since each device has it’s own specific wavelength, there is no loss of speed when the network is being hammered by multiple users.
The antennas contain a pair of gratings that radiate light rays of different wavelengths at different angles (‘passive diffraction gratings’).
Changing the light wavelengths also changes the direction of the ray of light. A safe infrared wavelength is used that does not reach the retina in the eye.
If a user is walking about and a smartphone or tablet moves out of the light antenna’s direction, then another light antenna takes over, researchers said.
The network tracks the precise location of every wireless device using its radio signal transmitted in the return direction.
Different devices are assigned different wavelengths by the same light antenna and so do not have to share capacity.
Current Wi-Fi uses radio signals with a frequency of 2.5 or five gigahertz. The new system uses infrared light with wavelengths of 1,500 nanometres and higher. Researchers managed to achieve a speed of 42.8 Gbit/s over a distance of 2.5 metres.
The team said that even with the best Wi-Fi systems currenly available, users would not get more than 300 Megabit/s in total, which is some hundred times less than the speed per ray of light achieved by the new system.
The system has so far used the light rays only to download; uploads are still done using radio signals since in most applications much less capacity is needed for uploading.
Also, the system will never be interfered with by other networks.
