About the Enhance Lighting for the Internet of Things (ELIoT) Project at the Optical Wireless Communications Group, Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford

So far, the Internet of Things (IoT) is narrowband with no latency constraints. A wider range of applications is envisioned for industrial manufacturing, augmented reality and autonomous cars. It makes use of artificial intelligence, where compute functions will be offloaded from devices into the cloud. Accordingly, future IoT will need wireless links with high data rates, low latency and reliable connectivity despite the limited radio spectrum. Connected lighting is an interesting infrastructure for IoT services because it enables visible light communication (VLC), i.e. a wireless communication using unlicensed light spectrum. LED luminaires have enough modulation bandwidth for high data rates and each luminaire can be used as a wireless access point. Networked VLC-enhanced luminaires will add new features to build a wireless network for the IoT. ELIOT will start from existing prototypes and develop the support for IoT services.

The project will integrate the lighting infrastructure with VLC and add positioning, multicast communications and enhanced security. ELIOT will demonstrate the new infrastructure in real environments at TRL ≥6 and mobile IoT devices at TRL ≥ 4. Main project goals are to provide an open reference architecture for the support of IoT in the lighting infrastructure, build consensus reflecting the best architectural choices, contribute to standardization of lighting and telecom infrastructures in IEC, IETF, IEEE and ITU-T and provide a roadmap for IoT until 2022 and beyond. ELIOT brings together Europe’s key players that cover the whole value chain, i.e. OSRAM, Philips Lighting and Tridonic as major component and luminaire makers, Maxlinear as chipmaker, NOKIA as a leading network vendor and integrator, BMW, Weidmüller and Thyssen Krupp working on industrial IoT, Deutsche Telekom and KPN as innovative operators, together with Fraunhofer HHI as a leading research institute and two top universities from Eindhoven and Oxford.