Sun-Fi: Architecting Glass for Sunlight Data Transmission

Sun-Fi LCD design

 

In this project, we proposed and analyzed the performances of an LCD-based passive Sunlight communication system called Sun-Fi. We designed a novel Dual-cell Liquid Crystal Shutter (DLS) by stacking two LC cells operating in opposite manners. The DLS offered fast and equal opening and closing times. Additionally, with the proper design of the pulse waves, the DLS mechanism addressed the issues of the flicker effect and the inter-symbol interference. Then, we developed a Sunlight modulator that efficiently utilizes of time and polarization dimensions to boost the data rate and we provided the theoretical analysis of the proposed system with simulation results.

Duration

2022-2024

Funding

  • KAUST Research Funds.

Team Members

  • Prof. Mohamed-Slim Alouini, Electrical Engineering, KAUST, KSA

  • Dr. Osama Amin, Electrical Engineering, KAUST, KSA

  • Sahar Ammar, Electrical Engineering, KAUST, KSA

Selected Publications

  • S. Ammar, O. Amin, M.-S. Alouini, and B. Shihada, "Design and Analysis of LCD-based Modulator for Passive Sunlight Communications", IEEE Photonics Journal, Vol. 14, No. 5, pp. 1-17, 2022 [PDF]

  • S. Ammar, O. Amin, M.-S. Alouini, and B. Shihada, "Sun-Fi: Architecting Glass for Sunlight Data Transmission", IEEE Communications Magazine, 2023 [PDF]

Software Packages

 

Demo

Sun-Fi Demo

Media

KAUST Insight, KAUST Discovery.

archyde, euronews, yahoo, new atlas