Leverage LiFi in Smart Manufacturing

Communication is the fundamental requirement for smart manufacturing. Due to the rough environment and several other boundary conditions of smart manufacturing, such as flexible structures and movable machines, radio communication technologies are suffering due to the physical effects of fading, reflection, attenuation and range. Light Fidelity (LiFi) is a networked optical wireless communication (OWC) system and an alternative to radio for wireless communications. It enables both, communications and positioning. In this paper, we introduce requirements on communications systems in modern manufacturing with a focus on industrial data, we describe scenarios for the application of LiFi for wireless and reliable network communications, i.e. optical wireless communications as well as for indoor positioning of intelligent transport systems, i.e. optical wireless positioning. We describe a system architecture for LiFi with 5G in smart manufacturing and address the benefits of applying LiFi in these scenarios and the associated challenges.