Survey on 802.11bb Published in IEEE Communications Standards Magazine

The paper “Current Status and Challenges of Li-Fi — IEEE 802.11bb” by Ilya Levitsky and Evgeny Khorov has been published in IEEE Communications Standards Magazine, a Q1 magazine. This paper surveys a new 802.11bb standard that specifies Light Communications for WLANs, such as Wi-Fi, highlights its key novelties, and points out actual problems to be solved by researchers. Now the paper is available at IEEE Xplore. You can also see a related talk by one of the authors Ilya Levitsky on the official IITP YouTube channel.

Existing and emerging applications of wireless networks require high data rates for multiple users, transmission security, uninterrupted connection, and no performance degradation in dense deployments. Light communications (LC) is a method that can potentially satisfy these challenging requirements. Exploiting the visible and infrared light spectrum opens the door for novel applications in the industrial and medical areas, and in enterprise and residential scenarios where traditional radio frequencies are restricted, prohibited, or inefficient. To enable LC in Wi-Fi networks, the IEEE 802.11 Working Group has launched a new 802.11bb standard. Although the work is currently ongoing, it is already possible to sketch a general view of the key innovations of 802.11bb based on the ongoing discussions in the group. This paper focuses on the principles of 802.11bb operation, such as waveform and LC frontend peculiarities and innovations at MAC layer. This survey is expected to attract the research community to 802.11bb challenges.

The paper is published in IEEE Communications Standards Magazine, a first quartile (Q1) magazine, and a platform for presenting and discussing a broad variety of standards-related topics in the area of communications.