Enabling zero-energy wireless communication with ambient light

For more than a century, artificial lighting has served solely the purposes of illumination. Only recently, we have started to use artificial lights to create new disruptive services such as indoor localization. Key to this major development is the ability to modulate modern light bulbs (LEDs). But not all lights can be modulated. For example, we cannot modulate the sun, but it would be transformative if we could untap that vast amount of optical energy to carry out massive wireless communication. The goal of this proposal is to enable objects to exploit passive light sources, such as the sun, to transmit information in a sustainable (no batteries) and privacy-preserving manner (no cameras). The challenge in achieving this vision is that we lose control over the modulation process. No such challenge is faced by existing communication systems because the information is always modulated by a transmitter. Passive sources are only energy emitters, they cannot be controlled. LuxSenz proposes a new communication channel that exploits object mobility and smart surfaces to modulate information. Objects will sense data, but instead of communicating this information actively, e.g. via a radio module, they will adapt the reflective properties of their external surface according to the information they want to convey. These changes in reflection will create distinctive patterns that can be later decoded by simple photoreceptors deployed in the environment. LuxSenz ‘s scientific contribution will be a novel framework consisting of theoretical models, decoding methods and zero-energy platforms to enable this new communication channel.