Making an impact on Day 1 of Cambridge Tech Week 2025, the LRDC was delighted to give a live demonstration of its world-leading optical wireless communication technology, to the 100+ attendees gathered at the Bradfield Centre on Cambridge Science Park for the start of the five-day event.
#CamTechWeek highlights Cambridge’s position as a globally renowned hub for ground breaking ideas and cross-industry collaboration, with a deep-rooted culture of innovation and research excellence – synergies which are shared by the LRDC in its position of research group at the University of Cambridge – as well as strategic support.
Delegates at the event were able to experience a live experiment, by LRDC team members Hossein Kazemi, Research Associate, and Tiankuo Jiao, PhD Researcher, that demonstrated real-time transmission of uncompressed high definition (HD) video over a laser-based optical wireless link, using a vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL). The laser output power is eye-safe. The laser uses infrared light which is invisible to the naked eye and eye-safe. The link is established between a camera with serial digital interface (SDI) and a full HD monitor, by directly modulating the SDI video signal on the VCSEL’s emitted light. The benefit of this is that HD video signals can be transferred wirelessly with extremely low latency, as there is no intermediate signal processing; at the same time, there are no cables, which provides greater flexibility and ease of deployment. This work is based on a recent publication [https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.23746] where we have shown 70 Gbps link data rates through such VSCEL data link.
The LRDC’s Hossein Kazemi explains “With this experiment, we show how ‘off-the-shelf’ components from the video production industry can be used to build a real-time optical wireless video link with ultra-low latency. By replacing existing SDI cable connections with more robust, wireless links, we can provide an alternative and cost-effective solution for data-intensive activities such as the live streaming of video and television (TV) broadcasting applications, providing both commercial and end user benefits.”
Global connectivity and digital inclusion are vital to the development of future-fit telecoms networks, and the LiFi-based technologies deployed within the LRDC’s demonstration directly address today’s requirements for super-high bandwidth than can transfer complex data rapidly, as well as offer a greener solution.
Photo, top, shows, left to right, Tiankuo Jiao, PhD Researcher, and Hossein Kazemi, Research Associate fine-tuning the LRDC demonstration at the 2025 #CamTechWeek