High-speed wireless via...laser pointers?

By Greg Crowe

Connecting state and local government leaders

| May 7, 2012

Researchers in Taiwan use tricked-out laser pointers to get 500 megabits/sec. data feeds in places where radio transmissions dare not go.

Here’s more news in the “Further Evidence That We Are, Right Now, Living In The Future” department. A group of scientists in Taiwan has invented a way to transmit data using commonly available laser pointers.

In an abstract and full paper, the researchers from the National Taipei University of Technology explain how they used the pointers to achieve faster-than-Wi-Fi speeds.

They set up a Visible Light Communication system for demonstration using equipment that cost $600. They used red and green laser pointers because they were cheap and easy to acquire. Hai-Han Lu, one of the project leaders, even said that “hobbyists could do this at home.”

The part that might take more than a “hobbyist” level of skill to implement, however, was the replacement of the batteries in the laser pointers with a power source that could switch the lasers on and off rapidly — about 500 million times per second.

The two laser pointers then flashed their red and green beams into the receivers positioned 10 meters away, and a multiplexer combined the two signals.

What they ended up with was a 500 megabits/sec. transmission over 10 meters with an error rate of one in 1 billion. That is pretty impressive.

From a practical standpoint, this technology could be used in places where radio transmissions (like wireless devices emit) are a no-no, like in a hospital or laboratory. So, where you can’t use Wi-Fi, you can use laser pointers.

You can’t walk through the beams without breaking the transmission, but at least you won’t get fried or disintegrated or anything.

With a successful demonstration of practical and efficient laser beam communications, another staple of science fiction writers is now reality. That leads to the question, what’s next? Personally, I’m hoping for hyperspace travel.

NEXT STORY: Why Google's SPDY is none too swift

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