Wireless Netw (2015) 21:18791889
DOI 10.1007/s11276-015-0889-0
Li-Fi: Light fidelity-a survey
Xu Bao Guanding Yu Jisheng Dai
Xiaorong Zhu
Published online: 18 January 2015
Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015
Abstract Visible light communication (VLC), which
uses a vast unregulated and free light spectrum, has
emerged to be a viable solution to overcome the spectrum
crisis of radio frequency. Light fidelity (Li-Fi) is an optical
networked communication in the subset of VLC to offload
the mobile data traffics which offers many advantages at
indoor scenario. In this article, we survey the key tech-
nologies for realizing Li-Fi and present the sate-of-the-art
on each aspect, such as: indoor optical wireless channel
model, the VLC modulation techniques with user satis-
faction, OFDM in VLC, optical MIMO, optical spatial
modulation, multiple user access, resource allocation,
interference management and hybrid Li-Fi schemes. Some
X. Bao (&)
School of Computer and Communications Engineering,
Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212013, China
e-mail: xbao@ujs.edu.cn
G. Yu
Institute of Information and Communication Engineering,
Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
e-mail: yuguanding@zju.edu.cn
J. Dai
School of Electrical and Information Engineering,
Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212013, China
e-mail: jsdai@ujs.edu.cn
J. Dai
National Mobile Communications Research Laboratory,
Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China
X. Zhu
Wireless Communication Key Laboratory of Jiangsu Province,
Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications,
Nanjing 210003, China
e-mail: xrzhu@njupt.edu.cn
challenges and future work that need to be solved in the
area are also described.
Keywords Light fidelity (Li-Fi)  Visible light
communication (VLC)  VLC modulation with user
satisfaction  Optical MIMO  Interference management 
Hybrid Li-Fi
1 Introduction
The advent of smartphones, tablets, and many other devi-
ces has made mobile information access a central feature of
our lives. It is estimated that more than 11 exabytes of data
traffic will be transferred through mobile networks every
month by 2017 [1], which pushes the radio frequency (RF)
based wireless technologies to their limits since the spec-
trum allocation chart has showed that most spectrum has
already been allocated under license [2]. In order to
accommodate more users and more data traffic, several
promising solutions have been proposed. They can be
classified into three groups: (1) exploring spatial resources
to improve spectrum utilization, (2) establishing hetero-
geneous networks (HetNet) with small cells to reuse
bandwidth, (3) searching for more available spectrum
resources, such as millimeter waves or wireless optical
bandwidth.
Among the above possible solutions, visible light com-
munication (VLC), which uses wireless optical in the
wavelength interval of 380780 nm has received much
research interests recently. The first wireless communica-
tion prototype using visible light was far back as 1880,
when Alexander Graham Bell developed a photo-phone
that allowed for the transmission of both sounds and nor-
mal human conversations on a beam of light [3]. However,
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the research of optical wireless communication did not
receive much attention for several years. As the develop-
ment of the semiconductor technology, this situation has
been changed. It is possible that visible light communica-
tion (VLC) uses off-the-shelf white light emitting diodes
(LEDs) as signal transmitters and off-the-shelf p-intrinsic-n
(PIN) photodiodes (PDs) or avalanche photo-diodes
(APDs) as signal receivers. VLC not only provides indoor
illumination but also offers broadband connectivity by
modulating information onto the intensity of the light. The
advantages of VLC over RF include:
(1) Unregulated bandwidth over more than 350T Hz for
wavelengths in the range of 380780 nm.
(2) Spatial confinement of the light beams provides
security avoiding interception or eavesdropping.
Besides, it also allows dense spatial reuse to improve
network throughput substantially.
(3) The VLC can produce a much higher signal-to-noise-
ratio (SNR) compared to the RF network due to the
high brightness of white LED and short distance
between optical transmitter (TX) and receiver (RX).
(4) It is easier to be established since the wide utilization
of the low cost LED and PD.
(5) Optical signals do not cause electromagnetic inter-
ference (EMI) which limits use of RF technologies
in certain environments such as hospitals, airplanes,
certain military settings etc.
(6) Visible light with limited intensity does not pose any
health risk and are therefore safe for most applications.
(7) Wireless optical channels do not suffer multipath
fading which has become one of the impairments in
RF links. It is because that the large size of PD relative
to the wavelength of the light provides a large degree
of spatial diversity of RX to mitigate multipath fading.
Recently, VLC has also drawn increasing attentions from
the industrial circles and standardization organizations. In
2003, visible light communications consortium (VLCC)
was established in Japan, which is aiming to publicize and
standardize the VLC technology with major Japan com-
panies including Toshiba, NEC, Panasonic, Sony, NTT
DoCoMo [4]. In 2008, Home Gigabit Access (OMEGA)
project was funded by the European Commission under EU
Framework Programme 7 (FP7), seeking to develop global
standards for home networking, including the use of optical
wireless using infrared and VLC technology [5]. In 2009,
the IEEE 802.15.7 VLC Task Group has completed a
physical and MAC standard for VLC [6].
To offload traffic from cellular networks, the term Light
fidelity (Li-Fi) which borrows the name from Wi-Fi is
introduced as a subset of VLC that exhibits the high-speed,
bidirectional, and fully networked communications. This
term was first used by Harald Haas in his TED Global talk on
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VLC, and the Li-Fi Consortium was formed in Oslo, Norway
in 2011 with the purpose of providing a high speed and
wireless optical network [7]. However, there are several
challenges to construct a Li-Fi. First, the general intensity
modulation of VLC is to carry binary data by turning LED on
and off quickly, in which the amplitude and phase informa-
tion are lost. Accordingly, inappropriate modulation formats
may lead to flicker and color variation which can largely
influence the human moods. Second, the lack of multipath
fading makes the optical channels strongly correlated,
therefore receive diversity is hard to be achieved and traffic
may be susceptibly interrupted. Third, although Li-Fi using
illumination sources is naturally suited to broadcast appli-
cations, it is hard to provide the optical uplink services. It will
interfere with the downlink signal and the receiver antenna
must direct to the VLC TX even when mobile terminals
(MTs) are moving. Fourth, optical channel will be easily
influenced by the blockage of objects and suffered by shad-
owing. Therefore, it is necessary to have link recovery as
well as handover mechanisms to be compatible with the
mobile scenarios. Last but not least, the coverage of Li-Fi is
limited within the opaque space. Hence, the seamless cov-
erage is a critical issue which is worth further investigation.
In this article, we summarize the state-of-the-art technolo-
gies to overcome the above challenges, such as indoor optical
wireless channel modeling, the VLC modulation techniques
with user satisfaction, OFDM in VLC, optical MIMO,
optical spatial modulation, multiple user access, resource
allocation, interference management and hybrid Li-Fi
schemes in the remaining parts.
2 Indoor optical wireless channel model
In a typical VLC system, the ceiling LED lights are usually
used to transmit data to a receiver placed on a desk within a
room. The illumination at any point of the receiving sur-
face includes line of sight (LOS) from the LED as well as a
contribution of refections off the walls or objects in the
room. Typical light LED bulbs achieve more than 400 lux
to provide sufficient indoor illumination. Those illumina-
tion levels are enough to transmit data at high SNRs of
more than 60dB on the optical LOS channel [8, 33].
Therefore, the total gain of indoor VLC channel consists of
LOS (HLOS ) and diffuse (HDIFF ) gains. The channel fre-
quency response can be described as [9]:
X
Hf gLOS;i expj2pf DsLOS;i
i
1
expj2pf DsDIFF
gDIFF 
1 jf f0
where i is the number of the LOS paths, gLOS and gDIFF
represent the channel gain for the LOS and diffuse path,
Wireless Netw (2015) 21:18791889
respectively; DsLOS and DsDIFF are the corresponding
delay. f0 is the 3dB cut-off frequency of the diffuse chan-
nel. The LOS and diffuse channel gains are given by:
( 
AR m 1 cos m hi cos wi 2pri2 wi  wmax Unlike RF modulation methods, VLC adopts the intensity
gLOS;i
0 otherwise
2 quickly, in which the amplitude and phase information are
and,
AR q potentially lead to human health complications, such as
gDIFF 3 nausea or epilepsy, related to fluctuations in light inten-
ARoom 1  q
where AR and ARoom are the area of the optical receiver and
the room, respectively. hi denotes the irradiance angle with
respect to the transmitter axis and wi is the incidence angel
with respect to the receiver angle. wmax denotes the field-of-
view (FOV) semiangle of the receiver. ri is the distance
between ith transmitter and ith optical detector. m is the
Lambert index, which depends on the source radiation
semiangle hmax as m 1= log2 cos hmax . q represents the
average reflectivity which is the same value given an
indoor room. The schematic view of indoor optical wireless
channel is shown in Fig. 1. If we consider an ideal con-
dition with Lambertian reflectors and q 1, the optical
power by first order reflections is about more than 100 dB
less than the path loss of the LOS transmission [10]. Since
the path loss of higher order reflections is even larger, the
effects of the diffuse paths can be neglected. Due to that,
the VLC channels remain highly correlated if the optical
detectors are symmetry relative to the transmitter LED.
However, this is a worst scenario for establishing a wireless
network and it is also distinctly different feature compared
to the RF channel.
Fig. 1 Schematic view of indoor optical wireless channel model
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3 Single-user communication
3.1 VLC modulation techniques with user satisfaction
modulation to carry binary data by turning LED on and off
lost. Besides, modulation is a critical challenge for VLC
since it directly affects the illumination quality, which will
sity [11]. For fulfilling user satisfaction, dimming and
illumination are the first concerns for the VLC design.
For the VLC transmitter LED, dimming can be
obtained by controlling the drive current because the LED
junction current is proportional to the brightness. Analog
dimming, which adjusts the current continuously, is the
simplest type of dimming control. However, it will affect
the emitted light wavelength to bring the chromaticity
shift problem [12]. To this end, digital dimming schemes
are proposed. They can be achieved by adjusting the
average duty cycle or signal density, thus producing the
same average LED drive current. Furthermore, the time
average power from an LED should not be lower than a
threshold value defined by the dimming factor. Pulse
position modulation (PPM) encodes information by
transmitting a pulse in different time shifts. Each slot
contains a unique bit-combination for each symbol.
Therefore, the average power is constant with time, which
solves the flicker problem [13]. A modification to this
PPM technique is called the Variable-PPM (VPPM),
which is proposed in the IEEE 802.15.7 standard for
VLC [6]. It uses binary PPM to send data and changes the
pulse-width to control the dimming level. Another feasible
VLC modulation technology is to control the width of the
pulse based on the signal information which is known as
pulse width modulation (PWM). Considering the efficient
dimming control, multi-path PWM (MPWM) has been
proposed, in which multiple LEDs are used and the
average current through each LED array is pulse width
modulated [14]. In order to increase power and spectral
efficiency, multiple PPM (MPPM) is proposed that the
transmission symbol is represented by w of n (n  w)
chips of each duration [15]. The dimming control is
achieved by varying the number of optical pulses w. In
addition to the above schemes, coding with dimming
control is another research direction [1618]. A simple
dual-codeword allocation scheme for text transmission of
dimmable VLC is proposed in [16]. It allocates two
codewords with different average intensities and selec-
tively transmit one of them based on the dimming
requirements. However, only a limited number of dim-
ming rates are allowed. In [17], a turbo code-based coding
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scheme for on-off keying (OOK) is presented to satisfy
arbitrary dimming and code rate requirements. It is
accomplished by combing arbitrary puncturing and
scrambling with turbo codes. However, designing the
puncturing pattern is critical to the improvement of the
system performance. In [18], a puncturing pattern for
good rate-compatible punctured convolutional (RCPC)
codes is provided for required dimming levels and the
optimal decoding performance. Puncturing technique is
used to generate a punctured codeword and the dimming
controller inserts zeros and ones as compensation symbols
for dimming control.
In addition to the light intensity, the average light
chromaticity or color temperature values can also affect the
human circadian rhythm and cognitive functions such as
alertness, mood, executive function and memory of
humans [19]. For instance, humans can feel very relaxed
and active under the illumination of an average warm white
color temperature ( 3;500 K) and white color temperature
( 17;000 K), respectively [20]. Recently, three VLC
modulation techniques are designed for multi-colored
LED: color intensity modulation (CIM) [21], color-shift
keying (CSK) [22, 23] and metameric modulation
(MM) [24]. In order to achieve a static perceived color, the
modulation formats mentioned above involve CIE 1931
color space which is defined by international commission
on illumination [25]. The CIE color space contains all the
colors that are visible to human eyes with chromaticity x
and y. Ideally, the color-based modulation techniques are
designed to make the modulated signal white to the human
eyes. In CIM, data are encoded onto the instantaneous
intensity of an LED luminary while maintaining a static
perceived color and maximizes communication capac-
ity [21]. However, the optimal signal constellation for a
multicolored channel has to be obtained by an exhaustive
search which is time consuming and high complexity. CSK
encodes data to color combinations where the signal
envelope has a non-varying power. IEEE 802.15.7 standard
defines 7 colors to support for multicolored LED commu-
nications, while 3 color bands of them are used for CSK
modulation [26, 27]. For CSK, the standard provides 4-
CSK, 8-CSK and 16-CSK signal constellation. The con-
stellation plot of CSK on chromaticity space is shown in
Fig. 2. The vertices of R, G and B on CIE 1931 xy color
coordinate diagram denote the center wavelength of the
red, green and blue bands. In [23], a new CSK modulation
format is presented based on four colors (blue, cyan, yel-
low and red) instead of three in IEEE 802.15.7 standard. As
shown in Fig. 3, the operation color space of this new CSK
system is enclosed by the vertices C, Y, B and R. Besides,
it also provides the constellation maps on chromaticity
space of the MCSK (M 4, 8, 16 and 64). Observing from
the transformation between the light intensities and
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Wireless Netw (2015) 21:18791889
chromaticity in [23], only up three out of four LEDs will
be lighted at any time instance. In spite of this, the qua-
dLED (QLED) system has enhanced minimum Euclidean
distance among the data symbols due to the use of four
LEDs. CSK dimming employs amplitude dimming and
controls the brightness by changing the current driving the
light source. However, a color shift of the light source may
arise from improper control of driving current for ampli-
tude dimming. To solve this problem, MM is proposed to
further constrain CSK to keep a constant perceived color
output [24]. It encodes data sequences by exploiting two
color sets ({Blue, Cyan, Red} and {Blue, Green ,Red}) to
form two different spectral power distribution (SPD) that
are distinguishable at the receiver. Due to metamerism, the
instantaneous perceived color remains the same.
3.2 OFDM in VLC
OFDM has been idely used in wired and wireless com-
munication systems due to its high spectrum efficiency and
the capability of intersymbol interference cancellation.
However, the general RF OFDM cannot be directly applied
in VLC since the wireless optical signal is unipolar. In
order to achieve this kind of VLC signal without infor-
mation lost, several optical OFDM techniques have
recently been developed, such as: the direct current (DC)
biased optical OFDM (DCO-OFDM) [28], the asymmet-
rically clipped optical OFDM (ACO-OFDM) [29] and the
asymmetrically clipped DC biased optical OFDM (ADO-
OFDM) [30].
DCO-OFDM adds a DC bias to the bipolar analogue
signal xt and clips any remaining negative values in
signal xDCO t. If the DC bias is set a high value, the optical
SNR will become very large, leading to low optical power
efficiency. ACO-OFDM is proposed to overcome the dis-
advantages of DCO-OFDM which transmits information
only on odd subcarriers. Besides, the clipping noise is
added only on the even subcarriers, thus it will not interfere
with the information on the odd subcarriers. Although
ACO-OFDM is power efficient, its drawback is the low
spectrum efficiency which is half of DCO-OFDM and 1/4
of traditional OFDM provided the same digital modulation
formats. The ADO-OFDM, combing both ACO-OFDM
and DCO-OFDM, combat their respective disadvantages.
In this system, ACO-OFDM is transmitted on the odd
subcarriers and DCO-OFDM is transmitted on the even
subcarriers. Therefore, ADO-OFDM outperforms DCO-
OFDM in terms of power efficiency and outperforms ACO-
OFDM in terms of spectrum efficiency.
On the other hand, high peak-to-average power ratio
(PAPR) is another critical challenge for OFDM. In Li-Fi,
LED is the main source of nonlinearity especially when it
Wireless Netw (2015) 21:18791889 1883

Fig. 2 4/8/16-CSK
constellation on 2-D
chromaticity space in
IEEE802.15.7 standard

Fig. 3 4/8/16/64-CSK
constellation on 2-D
chromaticity space with QLED

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has dimming function for conserving energy or making
eyes comfortable. So, the linear dynamic range of LED is
limited by the turn-on current and the maximum permis-
sible luminance. As a result, the dimming control should be
taken into account when designing the optical OFDM,
which is worth further investigation.
3.3 MIMO in VLC
Multiple input and multiple output (MIMO) is a feasible
method to achieve high data rates in wireless optical com-
munication systems. However, the wireless optical channels
are fairly correlated which is discussed in the section of
Indoor optical wireless channel model. A non-imaging
optical MIMO system, as opposed to an imaging MIMO
system, is not consistent and depends on the symmetry of the
receivers, but an imaging MIMO system facilitates one piece
of lens in front of the PD to separate multiple LED signal to
achieve light spatial diversity even when the RXs move to
different positions or tilt [31, 32]. The difficulties of sepa-
rating multiple signals, which are projected on the plane of
receivers, lie on the light beams of LEDs with similar angles
of incidence. This requires a great number of PDs to provide
spatial diversity in practical systems, otherwise the inter-
channel interference (ICI) cannot be canceled.
To mitigate ICI and reduce system complexity, optical
spatial modulation (OSM) has been developed, which
combines MIMO and digital modulation techniques by
adding information bits in the spatial domain [33]. The
OSM signal can be estimated at the receiver by applying
the maximum likelihood principle to distinguish which
LED is transmitting. Based on the characteristics of OSM,
the system complexity is reduced compared to the optical
MIMO because the synchronization among transmitting
LEDs is not needed and the ICI can be easily canceled.
Similar to the optical MIMO, OSM also depends on the
geometry locations of the transmitters and receivers.
Asymmetrical channel conditions are generated if different
transmit power are allocated among LEDs [34].
4 Li-Fi network
For providing both illumination and seamless communi-
cation coverage, attocell architecture has been proposed,
which is referred from cellular network as the cell sizes are
smaller than in a typical RF femtocell network. Every LED
light bulb in attocell Li-Fi network is treated as an access
point and an illumination source for covering a limited
region or one room. In this context, Li-Fi is shown
potentially to provide at least an order of magnitude
improvement in the area spectral efficiency (ASE) as
compared to the femtocell system [35]. It is due to the fact
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that there is no interference from one room to another since
light does not propagate through walls unlike RF signals.
4.1 Multiple access and resource allocation
Based on the attocell architecture, users must be associated
with one or some LED lamps for accessing and downlink
transmission. In [36], three user access schemes are pro-
posed, i.e., the distance-prior (DP), the service aggregation
(SA) and the enhanced bandwidth-based (BB) lamp
selection schemes. All the users are assumed to be equip-
ped with a position sensor that can provide real-time pre-
cise position information to the LED scheduler. In DP
protocol, user accesses to the nearest LED lamp, while SA
scheme allow multiple LED lamps to serve one user for
satisfying the service requirements. However, many LED
lamps may carry limited service due to the dispersed sig-
nals using DP scheme, which is not economy. Also, SA
scheme may not robust when a network with extremely
aggregated services. In order to solve these problems, BB
scheme, which balances the advantages of DP and SA, has
been presented in [36] depending on the percentage of
LED affordable bandwidth. In case of little service, the
selection result is the same as that of the SA scheme;
otherwise, the result is the same as that of the DP scheme.
Nevertheless, interference among different LED lamps
under the scenario of dense users will increase to degrade
the system performances in [36].
Similar to OFDMA technology of RF network, effective
subcarrier and power allocation design can not only exploit
the spatial transmitter diversity but also decrease the
interference imposed on the users from the LED lamps.
In [37], a heuristic algorithm has been proposed to manage
subcarriers reuse among different transmitters and power
redistribution between different subcarriers. The interfer-
ences can be mitigated if the adjacent LED lamps use
orthogonal subcarriers. Different modulation order may be
adopted on each assigned subcarrier for satisfying the QoS
of different users. In [38], each user are allocated with
orthogonal subcarriers, while a user-specific interleaver is
adopted to separate users. However, high peak-to-average
power ratio (PAPR) always exists and needs to be can-
celled by the amplifier with high dynamic range.
Another multiple access technique, namely optical code-
division multiple access system (OCDMA), has been
developed to allow simultaneous transmission from a large
number of sources by using random optical codes (ROCs)
to share the channel [39]. Although the novel preamble bits
have been designed, the synchronization among TXs and
RXs is still challenging, especially for large number of
accessing users. In [40], the multiple access technique
using multilevel-expurgated pulse position modulation
(EPPM) is proposed. Different with the schemes that
Wireless Netw (2015) 21:18791889
discussed above, it can also support the light feature of
dimming control by simply changing the generating bal-
anced incomplete block designs (BIBD) code, which is an
area of combinatorial mathematics with many communi-
cation applications [4144]. Fig. 4 shows the multilevel
symbol generated using a (13,3,1) optical orthogonal codes
(OOC) [45] codeword and a (13,4,1) BIBD code. In this
scheme, every user is assigned an unique OOC and the
BIBD codes are used for high order modulation. The
number of BIBD codes that allocated to the users can be
dynamically adjusted according to their rate requirements.
As shown in Fig. 4(b), every bit of the user encoded binary
sequence is multiplied by a BIBD codeword, and then the
OOC-encoded BIBD codewords are added to generate a
multilevel signal.
Optical beamforming, which is considered to be a kind
of spatial multiplex technique, has been recently proposed
that it can focus LED light on a desired target device [46].
This technology can increase the transmission distance by
enhancing optical SNR at a given direction and provide
(a)
(b)
Fig. 4 a Symbol generation for coded-MEPPM using the
(1100100000000) OOC codeword and a (13,4,1)-BIBD, and b the
resulting symbol
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orthogonal multiple user transmission based on spatial
separation. Spatial light modulator (SLM), which is a
transparent or reflective optical device that can modulate
optical phase or amplitude on each pixel, is attached on the
LED TX as shown in Fig. 5. SLM can be regarded as a
dynamic diffractive convex lens controlled by electrical
signals [47]. In order to satisfy the multi-user scenario,
several direction codes representing different indoor posi-
tions are modulated and packed via LED light transmis-
sion. When the user detects the direction code, it sends the
information to the LED via uplink channels (e.g., WiFi,
infrared or Bluetooth and so on). Correspondingly, the
modulated light beam can transmit in a particular path to
the RX without interfering with others.
4.2 Interference management
In attocell Li-Fi architecture like RF cellular network,
inter-cell and intra-cell interference mitigation techniques
are indispensable. The most common method is to assign
different sub-bands for neighboring cells in order to avoid
co-channel interference (CCI). A combined wavelength
division and code division scheme is proposed in [48]. In
this scheme, multi-color white LEDs are implemented, in
which one color is selected to transmit information and
others are reserved for illumination. Different wavelength
channels assigned to each cell are used to mitigate inter-
cell interferences, phase-shifted maximum-length PN
sequences are applied to distinguish LEDs sharing the
same wavelength channel and the Walsh-Hadamard (WH)
code is adopted for user differentiation within a cell to
minimize intra-cell interference. This system design is
Fig. 5 Optical beamforming system model
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largely referred to the RF CDMA cellular network, thus
increasing the synchronization difficulties and system
complexity. In order to increase bandwidth utilization,
fractional frequency reuse (FFR) is first introduced in Li-
Fi [49] which partitions the available bandwidth for the
cell-edge to avoid CCI and cell-center users for using the
full bandwidth to maximize the system throughput. How-
ever, this complicates the design of the LED array, in
which multiple colors are adopted and the direction of
every LED light beam must be carefully designed. In [50],
a self-organizing interference mitigation technique is pro-
posed, in which every user must broadcast busy burst (BB)
packets to reserve the frequency-time blocks for the next
transmission frame. The LED must listen to the given
block before transmitting on that block. With this
approach, the assignments of the blocks are dynamically
allocated depending on the locations of the active uers,
while the CCI in the neighboring cells can be totally
mitigated.
4.3 Hybrid Li-Fi network
As mentioned above, VLC using illumination sources is
naturally suitable for broadcast applications. However,
there are three main obstacles for optical uplink transmis-
sion: (1) optical uplink may interfere with the downlink
signal. (2) the moving TX has difficulty in focusing on its
RX. (3) the optical uplink from a device may be uncom-
fortable to the users, while the high power consumptions
may make the device integration impractical. As a viable
solution, the combination of VLC and the existing RF
network not only has the potential to overcome the defi-
ciencies but also promote the commercialization of Li-Fi.
The indoor integration system of VLC and Wi-Fi is
proposed in [5153], where VLC is only used for broad-
casting. System performances under three cases ( 1. utilizing
only Wi-Fi channel; 2. all downlink traffic is operated by
VLC; 3. hybrid channel of VLC and Wi-Fi) have been
analyzed in [51, 52]. Furthermore, the mobility models of
users and performance metrics such as dowload file size,
average connectivity are considered in [52]. For a big house
with multiple rooms, [53] introduced a VLC network
coordinator, which is defined by IEEE Standard 802.15.7,
for providing the bi-directional interfaces between uplink
Wi-Fi access and downlink LED transmission. However, the
above hybrid schemes require that Wi-Fi should manage the
uplink acknowledgements of VLC frames which may create
frequent small-packet traffic. And it would reduce the
throughput of co-located Wi-Fi only devices. Similarly, the
VLC latency and transmission rate are largely influenced by
the presences of Wi-Fi devices. These problems need to be
further investigated.
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For hybrid Li-Fi network, handover is the most impor-
tant issue to provide the seamless traffic and heterogeneous
support because VLC is sensitive to the blockage of objects
and suffering shadowing due to the high directionality of
the optical channel. Hou and OBrien [54] proposed a
fuzzy-logic (FL)-based decision-making algorithm for
vertical handover in the hybrid system, in which the optical
link is subject to blocking, and depending on the duration
of the blocking, the system performs a vertical handover to
an RF network. Similar to the RF handover protocols, the
received signal strength (RSS) like handover procedures
are introduced in [55, 56].
Besides, the movement of TX is another incentive to
make a handover due to the limited coverage area of single
LED. When MT passes through different hotspots ( the
coverage area of one LED lamp on the ground ), it may
change the downlink transmission from one to another,
known as horizontal handover. However, MT may change
the downlink channels from VLC to RF and vice versa,
which is named as vertical handover. To this end, a novel
protocol considering the mobility of MTs is presented
in [57], which is combined with access, horizontal and
vertical handover mechanisms in hybrid network of Li-Fi
and OFDMA system.
5 Summary and future work
In this article, we outlined the standardization groups
working in VLC technologies and discussed the state-of-
the-art research on Li-Fi network. Indoor optical wireless
channel model, the VLC modulation techniques with user
satisfaction, OFDM in VLC, optical MIMO, optical spatial
modulation, multiple user access and resource allocation,
interference management, as well as hybrid Li-Fi schemes
for developing Li-Fi network were introduced.
Although Li-Fi is in its infancy, its potential advantages
can make it supplement RF communications and improve
wireless network performance wherever short range links
are used, such as at home or in office for high speed and
secure data transmission. However, there are still many
problems that need additional study, for instance,
(1) Dimming and light quality control in Li-Fi network
needs to be further investigated. Based on the recent
research [58], achieving high speed data rates on
very low or high illumination levels can be prob-
lematic. Therefore, a tradeoff needs to be figured out
between the maximum dimming range and the
number of LEDs used for room illumination.
Furthermore, color variation which largely affects
the human moods may exists when implementing
high speed modulation techniques.
Wireless Netw (2015) 21:18791889
(2) How to design efficient access and multiplex
schemes which are unsusceptible to the TX-RX
arrangements and the optical channel conditions is
still open. Although a single optical link can be
achieved more than 1 Gbps now, many challenges
need to be solved when multiple users try to access
and share the optical links. Existing multi-user
transmission schemes require the constrained TX-
RX positions, the departure and arrival angle of
light, and the perfect optical channel matrix.
Besides, the system performance will be dramati-
cally degraded if the optical circumstances are
changed.
(3) The cooperative techniques and protocols between
Li-Fi and the existing RF network need further
study. RF networks are widely used and gradually to
be indispensable in our lives. Integrating Li-Fi into
RF communications will not only accelerate the
marketization of Li-Fi, but also offload traffic from
the extremely crowded cellular networks. However,
a large number of feedback packets and considerable
delay may exist when performing handover between
Li-Fi and RF network, which need to be further
investigated.
Acknowledgments This work is supported by the Natural Science
Foundation of Jiangsu Province under Grant Nos. BK20130530 and
BK2012831, the Programs of Senior Talent Foundation of Jiangsu
University under Grant No. 11JDG130, the National Natural Science
Foundation of China under Grant Nos. 61372125 and 61102054, and
Open Research Fund of National Mobile Communications Research
Laboratory, Southeast University under Grant No. 2013D08.
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Xu Bao received the B.E.
degree and the M.E. degree from
Jiangsu University in 2003 and
2006, respectively, both in
Communication Engineering.
He received the Ph.D. degree
from the National Mobile Com-
munications Research Labora-
tory in Jun. 2011, Southeast
University, Nanjing, China.
From Nov. 2013 to Nov. 2014,
he worked as a post-doctor in
Georgia Institute of Technology,
Atlanta, GA, USA. He is an
Associate Professor with the
School of Computer Science and Communication Engineering, Ji-
angsu University, Zhenjiang, China. His research interests include
visible light communications, wireless network design and heteroge-
neous network.
Wireless Netw (2015) 21:18791889 1889

Guanding Yu received the B.E.
degree and the Ph.D. degree
from Zhejiang University in
2001 and 2006, respectively,
both in Communication Engi-
neering. After that, he joined
Zhejiang University, where he is
an Associated Professor in the
Department of Information and
Electronic Engineering. Since
July 2013, he has been a visiting
professor in the School of
Electrical and Computer Engi-
neering, Georgia Institute of
Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA.
Dr. Yu served as a reviewer for many journals and conferences, such
as IEEE JSAC, TCOM, TWC, TVT, IJCS, ICC, VTC, Globecom,
WCNC, etc. He has served as the general co-chair of CRNet 2010
workshop, TPC co-chair for Green Communications & Computing
symposium of Chinacom 2013 and TPC member for various aca-
demic conferences. He is a co-editor of the upcoming IEEE Com-
munications Magazine special issue on full-duplex communications.
His research interest includes energy-efficient wireless communica-
tion system design, device-to-device communications, and small cell
technique.
Zhenjiang, China. His current research interests include convex
optimization theory, information theory, wireless communications,
machine learning, and bioinformatics.
Xiaorong Zhu received her
Ph.D. degree in wireless com-
munications in 2008 from
Southeast University, Nanjing,
China. She was a post-doctor in
The Chinese University of Hong
Kong in 2008 and 2009. Now
she is an associate professor of
Nanjing University of Posts and
Telecommunications. Her research
interests include wireless net-
works, wireless access technol-
ogy, as well as cognitive radio
communications.

Jisheng Dai received the B.E.

degree in electronic engineering
from the Nanjing University of
Technology, Nanjing, China, in
2005, and the Ph.D. degree in
information and communication
engineering from the University
of Science and Technology of
China, Hefei, China, in 2010.
He was a Research Assistant
with the Department of Electri-
cal and Electronic Engineering,
University of Hong Kong, Hong
Kong, in 2009. He is currently
an Associate Professor with the
School of Electrical and Information Engineering, Jiangsu University,

123
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