Full length articleHost-to-host TCP/IP connection over serial ports using visible light communication
Introduction
Wireless usage is exponentially growing, although existing radio frequency communication spectrum is very limited [1]. One of the best solutions to extend the bandwidth of communication is VLC technology. Using VLC technology comes with new advantages [2]:
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License free bandwidth,
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100s of THz, higher bandwidth than Radio Frequency (RF),
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Simple frontend devices,
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Possibility for integration into the existing lighting infrastructure.
Harald Haas, from the University of Edinburgh, introduced the Light-Fidelity (Li-Fi) term in 2011, by flickering the light from a single LED. He noticed that he could transmit far more than a 2G/3G cellular tower. Then, he recorded that 224 Gbps, which is 2 games of 10 GB each, can be downloaded every single second [3]. In the near future, VLC seems to take the place of Wi-Fi. Both are bidirectional, high-speed, and fully networked wireless communication technology. This new technology can be a complement to RF communication (Wi-Fi or cellular networks), or even a replacement in contexts of data broadcasting. The main difference between these technologies is that VLC can work both for communication and illumination purposes since LEDs switch on and off at such a high rate that cannot be noticed by the human eye. Moreover, light waves cannot penetrate walls which makes VLC a more secure technology against hacking than Wi-Fi technology.
Hao Ma et al. explain how to use VLC as a download link [4]. They integrate indoor visible light and power line communication. However, this is just a unidirectional communication system. Another research work is done by Yingjie He et al. showing how to use VLC for real-time audio & video transmission [5]. This is again a unidirectional communication system and does not include any Internet connection. Chia-Wei Chen et al. use VLC for Internet of Things (IoT) applications [6]. VLC over a Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter (UART) system is used in that experiment which is similar to our experiment from the design perspective. However, again, it does not include any Internet connection. In our experiment, we provide a host-to-host TCP/IP connection over serial ports using VLC.
Sandeep Kumar Jain made research on Li-Fi in his article “A Review Paper on Li-Fi Technology” [7]. Even this article cites to Harald Haas because the technology is new, and there is not much information about Li-Fi. Harald Haas compares Li-Fi with the 5G technology in one of his articles [8]. He explains similarities between 5G and Li-Fi such as both operating in a shorter range and faster in terms of data transfer than 2-3-4G technologies. Haas supports using Li-Fi in our daily lives because of the limited bandwidth of the RF spectrum [8]. This paper differentiates from Haas’ work in terms of adding host-to-host communication in it.
The transmitter and receiver circuit designs used in this paper have been developed and explained in detail by the primary author of this paper, Heba Yuksel et al. in [9]. However, in [9], the design is only used in a unidirectional way to jeopardize the security of the Li-Fi system. The attacker eavesdrops on the signal through detecting power fluctuations at the transmitter side during communication [9]. In this paper, a bidirectional transmitter/receiver pair is used to transmit data from a serial port to a TUN device for the processor to receive information without using the Ethernet connection.
The objective of this paper is to enable a host-to-host TCP/IP connection over serial ports using VLC for Internet connection. VLC technology has been used in the past years and has lots of applications. However, the original contribution of this paper is in the connection of two computers to the Internet not with the use of Wi-Fi or an Ethernet cable but via light and the programming of a TUN device. In our experimental setup, the first computer does not have an Internet connection; it is connected to the Internet via VLC. Two circuits are designed, and these circuits communicate via light and are connected to the Universal Serial Bus (USB) ports of two computers. TUN is used to reach the Internet on the second computer.
The remaining of the paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, the authors present the basic theory of TCP/IP layer structure. Section 3 introduces the experimental setup for the host-to-host TCP/IP connection over serial ports using VLC. Section 3.2 describes the software designed to enable the personal computers on both ends to communicate host-to-host via VLC using the TUN device. Section 4 shows the results of one computer with no Internet connection sending a ping via the terminal to a second computer which has an active Internet connection and transmission occurs using VLC. Section 5 concludes the paper.
Section snippets
Theory
Since the objective of this paper is to enable a host-to-host TCP/IP connection over serial ports using VLC, it builds upon the theory of how network connection layers are structured [10]. (See Fig. 1.)
TCP is a connection oriented protocol and occurs in the transport layer. TCP helps the network layer deliver data by dividing data into packages. TCP manages the flow control by sending or accepting packages from the Internet layer. If any problem like data loss occurs during transmission, TCP
Hardware and software design
Since the objective of this paper is to enable a host-to-host TCP/IP connection over serial ports using VLC, it requires both hardware and software design work.
Results and discussion
Before starting the experiment, the 2 computers are connected to each other via a LAN cable so that a LAN network is connected between them. This enables the system to communicate on the same IP. This is a requirement for TUN to work properly. After creating this environment, the LAN cables are disconnected, and the circuit boards are connected to the computers directly.
The system has 2 identical circuits, both having the same receiver and transmitter parts on them, acting as transceivers. The
Conclusions
Visible light is linear and fast. Light itself can be seen but communication/data transmission inside it cannot be detected by the human eye. It is also cheaper than other communication techniques because this system does not entail special devices and does not require installing drivers.
In this paper, a host-to-host TCP/IP connection is enabled over the serial port using VLC. The data is transmitted from a serial port to a TUN device so that the processor receives the information without using
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Heba Yuksel: Supervision, Project administration, Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Resources, Data curation, Writing - review & editing. Ömer Altunay: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Resources, Data curation, Writing - original draft, Visualization.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the Bogazici University Research Fund (BAP), Turkey under the contract number 17201.
Heba Yuksel received a BS degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Maryland at College Park (UMCP) in 1996, M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1998 and Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from UMCP in 2005. She is currently an assistant professor of Electrical and Electronics Engineering at Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey. Her research interests include: Atmospheric turbulence, transmitter/receiver design, aperture averaging, and image
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Heba Yuksel received a BS degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Maryland at College Park (UMCP) in 1996, M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1998 and Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from UMCP in 2005. She is currently an assistant professor of Electrical and Electronics Engineering at Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey. Her research interests include: Atmospheric turbulence, transmitter/receiver design, aperture averaging, and image sensing for Free-Space Optical Communication links, Visible Light Communication, physical layer security in optical fiber communication systems, 3D surface topography using optical systems, design of optical touch sensors, optical temperature sensors and antennas.
Ömer Altunay received his M.S degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Bogazici University, Turkey in 2020 where he got his B.Sc. degree in 2016. He currently works in a global digital transformation company as a R&D engineer. His fields of interest include: linear control theory, IoT, machine learning, digital transformation and industry 4.