What is Visible Light Communication - LiFi? Visible Light Communication (VLC), sometimes also referred to as “LiFi", uses standard off-the-shelf visible light LEDs to transmit data using the visible light spectrum. VLC is receiving strong attention from the designers of the 5G networks and beyond. VLC can enable new pervasive wireless systems in the context of the Internet of Things.

Our Mission. The lack of an open-source and low-cost reference platform is hindering the progresses of research and industry in VLC systems. A general-purpose platform would add momentum to VLC and would open up new avenues of VLC research and spark the interest of researchers and engineers.  We take an initial step toward this and we design OpenVLC, an open-source Visible Light Communication platform for fast prototyping of new system protocols to build a LiFi network. It runs on a cost-effective yet powerful credit-card-sized embedded board.

Introducing OpenVLC

OpenVLC is an open-source, flexible and low-cost Visible Light Communication System platform. Research and development is coordinated by the Pervasive Wireless Systems group of Dr. Giustiniano at IMDEA Networks Institute (Madrid, Spain).

OpenVLC can achieve a throughput of 400 kb/s at the Transport Layer, with the latest 1.4 version supporting a distance of almost 20 meter, powered simply by the BeagleBone Black, which, for instance, can allow us to transmit video.

Everything is open source (hardware, firmware and driver). Code and schematics are available at https://github.com/openvlc/OpenVLC/, and everyone is welcome to contribute to the code. If you willing to produce the boards for the community, please get in touch with us.​​