i2CAT demonstrates data transmission through light at MWC

En su stand demuestra cómo, con una simple cámara de móvil, se puede recibir un mensaje gracias a las intermitencias de una luz LED.

The i2CAT Foundation está presente un año más en el Mobile World Congress, que tiene lugar hasta el 5 de marzo en Barcelona. Este año, la Fundación presenta sus avances en movilidad, concretamente en el área de las aplicaciones de ámbito industrial para las smart glasses, de las aplicaciones para las smart cities y de la transmisión de datos a un móvil a través de la luz.

The first demonstration of this technology center allows us to offer, through a virtual agent, a tour of the stand available at the congress, thanks to an application developed for Epson's Moverio smart glasses. This is proof of the possibilities that i2CAT and Epson make available to the national and international business community in augmented reality and virtual reality (Mixed Reality) applications for smart glasses in the industrial field.

The Foundation has recently signed an agreement with the multinational to locate the Moverio Competence Center in Catalonia, open to all those companies and developers who want to work in this field. Although the center was launched last January, there are already many companies that want to join, among which T-Systems, Droiders, Zerintia, LTC Group, Labs4Glass or Avanza Solucions stand out, among others.

Por otro lado, la Fundación i2CAT, en colaboración con Xona (consultora estratégica con base en Estados Unidos y Singapur) y dos entidades catalanas (Barkeno y Outsight), está impulsando la creación de un hub tecnológico en Barcelona (Barcelona Validation Lab) que permita hacer test y validación de nuevas soluciones y productos de start-ups dentro del entorno del proyecto Urban Lab del Ayuntamiento de Barcelona, siguiendo un modelo basado en la experiencia de Silicon Valley.

As an example, the i2CAT stand shows a demo carried out jointly with Network 42, a start-up located in San Francisco, which consists of a management system that allows analyzing the quality and service levels (SLA's) of a Smart City infrastructure. The prototype shown uses information obtained from the sensor platform of the city of Barcelona, ​​called Sentilo.

Finally, the i2CAT Foundation shows a demo of one of the future technologies that universities around the world are beginning to value as an alternative to WiFi, especially in indoor locations, and that i2CAT has been researching for years together with the Polytechnic University of Catalonia.

This is the VLC system (Visual Light Communication) or wireless communications through light, with a radio spectrum dozens of times larger than the radio frequency spectrum (used for WiFi and 3G/4G/5G), which with the advancement of the Internet of Things can become saturated. Furthermore, the system does not pose any health hazard, can be isolated to avoid interference, and can be easily implemented, as LED lights can be converted into transmitters and smartphones themselves into receivers.

This is what i2CAT demonstrates at the MWC stand: with a commercial LED luminaire and a Raspberry Pi computer, which turns the LED light on and off at a speed invisible to the human eye, a message is sent, captured by the camera of an Android smartphone (in this case, a Nexus 5), which decodes the message and displays it on the mobile screen. This technology allows use cases such as, for example, an application for navigation assistance for the blind in buildings (the light will inform about obstacles in a room, which will be captured by mobile phone through voice messages) or assisted navigation in museums (a light next to the painting will emit information about it, at the same time allowing exact location of the user).

Asimismo, cabe destacar que otro de los proyectos de la Fundación, T-Nova, que también dispone de demo en el stand y que permite la virtualización de los recursos de red y que el usuario pueda acceder a la carta, también tiene presencia en el stand de la Comisión Europea como uno de los ejemplos de proyectos innovadores financiados por este organismo dentro de la temática de las redes de nueva generación 5G.