European Training Network on Visible light based Interoperability and Networking

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - VisIoN (European Training Network on Visible light based Interoperability and Networking)

Période du rapport: 2019-09-01 au 2022-02-28

“European Training Network on Visible-light based Interoperability and Networking (VisIoN)” was an H2020 ITN MSCA project, implemented by a partnership of high-profile universities, research institutions, and industrial research partners that are located in 7 different countries.
The aim of the VisIoN project has been to train a new generation of early-stage researchers (ESRs) in the emerging area of Visible-Light Communications (VLC). The VLC technology basically uses light-emitting diodes (LEDs) for simultaneous illumination and data communication and offers significant technical and operational advantages within a wide range of applications compared with the existing radio frequency (RF)-based wireless technologies. In addition, VLC can be combined with the infrared and RF wireless technologies in specific applications to provide more robustness, and flexible services under all conditions in both indoor and outdoor environments.

The program was structured around 15 individual research projects within 3 main research topics:
• Smart Cities, Offices and Homes
• Smart Transportation
• Manufacturing and Medical

This research has served to develop a better know-how on the VLC technology, which is one of the most promising current areas of research with a significant potential for high-impact results and successful outcomes, which might revolutionize the utilization of LEDs for modern infrastructures by adding novel functionalities in addition to illumination.
Despite the great potentials, VLC has relatively been less explored topic, and there was a lack of investment in training research talents to lead this promising research area to the next level.

Up to now, most ESRs have defended their PhD thesis, and the remaining few will submit their thesis during May-June 2022. Graduated ESRs have been hired either in key industries or in top level universities and research labs, thus contributing to industrial research and development activities and academic research in the field of optical wireless communications within European, which has been among the main objective of VisIoN, thus directly contributing to the scientific, technological and economic agenda in Europe.

In WP2, the involved ESRs have made substantial contribution to the state-of-the-art in different application areas in terms of channel modeling, signal transmission and experimental verification.
• Xicong Li (ESR1) has developed efficient equalization techniques to increase the effective bandwidth of VLC systems and further verified them through experiments.
• Vicente Matus (ESR2) has worked on theoretical and experimental channel evaluation for optical camera communication systems, in particular applied to wireless sensor networks.
• Mahmoud Eltokhey (ESR3) has made interesting contributions to interference mitigation and parameter optimization in VLC networks.
• Neha Chaudhary (ESR4) has developed solutions for VLC-based positioning and investigated their performance by theoretical and experimental evaluations.
• Edmundo Torres (ESR5) has worked on the use of VLC networks in smart cities, focusing on channel modeling and handover solutions to address user mobility.
• Shivani Rajendra (ESR6) has investigated the design and implementation of optical camera-based communication systems for internet-of-things applications.
• Zahra Nazari (ESR7) has worked on the implementation of organic LEDs within VLC networks and the related channel characterization and signal transmission.

In WP3, after identifying the potential scenarios, ESRs made significant contribution in terms of both channel modeling, signal transmission and implementation set-ups.
• Hossien Eldeeb (ESR8) has worked on channel modelling and design optimization of transmitter-receiver for vehicular VLC systems.
• Elizabeth ESO (ESR9) has contributed to the design and performance evaluation of vehicular VLC networks including the use of multi-hop transmission.
• Elnaz Alizadeh (ESR10) has worked on the design of upper layers for vehicular VLC networks to address handovers.
• Bassam Aly (ESR11) has investigated the design and experimental verification of vehicular VLC networks in practical scenarios.

In WP4, the involved ESRs have made considerable contribution to channel modelling, transmission techniques design, and experimental evaluations on identified industrial and medical use-cases.
• Sreelal Maravanchery (ESR12) has worked on multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) channel measurements, modelling and performance evaluation for indoor VLC networks in industrial and medical scenarios.
• Sepideh Mohammadi (ESR13) has investigated distributed MIMO topologies for optical wireless communication and positioning.
• Md Jahid Hasan (ESR14) has worked on channel modeling and multi-user data transmission in optical wireless body-area networks.
• Oussama Haddad (ESR15) has investigated channel modeling and signaling design for medical wireless body-area networks focusing on links between medical sensors and a on-body hub.

VisIoN has made substantial contributions to the fundamental scientific understanding, technical knowledge and development of the VLC technology targeted for certain applications.
In addition, VisIoN facilitated extensive and focused technical training of ESRs in several areas including optical communications, photonics and devices / subsystems, wireless communications, information theory, physical and upper layer protocols, analytical and simulation, design and implementation as well as assessment, characterization, and evaluation to help them in their research and prepare them for the future technical career.
In addition to technical training, ESRs have benefited from a wide range of complementary non-technical training activities such as entrepreneurship, authoring scientific papers/patents, dissemination, etc.

Also, VisIoN has built on the close scientific and technical collaborations between the academic and industrial partners with complementary expertise, skills, and technical resources.
More specifically, all the research projects carried but by ESRs benefited from co-supervision of at least two partners and several secondments in partner institutions.
The participation of industrial partners has further promoted research training with commercialization perspectives enabling ESRs to fully integrate theory with hands-on practice.

In summary, the VisIoN project has had impact on the ESRs in the following ways:
- Opportunity to be involved with the state of the art technology and to broaden their horizon;
- Ability to work with others within teams;
- Exposition to different cultures, etc.

More globally, the VisIoN project has attracted particular attention within the research community, especially in Europe, due to the outreach activities, and organized a few technical events and participated in several national and international conferences and meeting as well as international standardization bodies to promote the vision and objectives of the project, to disseminate the research outputs, explaining the MSCA funding scheme and how it operates. To this effect, the scientific progress of the project has been very successful.
Quantitatively, so far, the project output in terms of scientific contribution has consisted of 48 publications in peer-reviewed international journals, and 79 publications in international conferences, which is quite outstanding.

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Periodic Reporting for period 2 - VisIoN (European Training Network on Visible light based Interoperability and Networking)

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