AN Edinburgh company whose communications technology uses light for connectivity has been awarded another multi-million-pound deal from the US Army, which its boss said “will put LiFi in the hands of millions of users”.
This is the second American forces’ contract pureLiFi has won and will see thousands of additional units of the LiFi Defence system, Kitefin deployed by the US Army in Europe.
Technologies such as WiFi, 4G and 5G all use radio frequencies to transmit data, which produce large areas of radiofrequency emissions that are easy to detect, intercept, and can cause bandwidth overcrowding.
This results in slower speeds and unreliable communications due to increased RF congestion.
LiFi is a remarkable alternative that offers connectivity using light rather than radio frequencies, resulting in wireless communication that is more reliable, significantly more secure, and simpler to deploy.
Alistair Banham, pureLiFi CEO, said The Kitefin system is now officially disrupting the ecosystem of wireless defence technologies.
“Kitefin provides the latest advancements protecting mission-critical communications and has the potential to save missions and lives,” he said.
“We won’t stop here; the train has now left the station and LiFi is on its way to even broader deployments and new markets. We will put LiFi in the hands of millions of users.”
LiFi has proven to be reliable for the most critical communications, enhancing the US Army’s wireless connectivity toolset, and demonstrating in action, that LiFi solves real problems faced by defence and national security.
With growing demand for bandwidth-hungry technologies, such as augmented and virtual reality, next-generation manufacturing and the metaverse, new wireless communications technologies are needed to enable new use cases and technology breakthroughs.
pureLiFi is now offering high-speed components ready for integration into consumer electronics such as mobile phones, laptops and tablets, with a view of taking LiFi mainstream and offering unprecedented bandwidth, ultra-fast speeds and military-grade security to consumers.
The company has been recognised as a rising star in the global technology sector and has been named one of the “EE Times Silicon 100 start-ups to watch” for the past two years.
Its co-founder and chief technology officer, Professor Harald Hass, illustrated the concept at TEDGlobal a decade ago and now, having now secured multiple million-dollar deals with the US Army Europe, pureLiFi has officially made its mark on the wireless communications marketplace.
Andrew Foreman, chief technology officer, US Army, Europe and Africa (USAREUR-AF), said: “LiFi technologies answer all three of the serious issues associated with the RF portion of the spectrum.
“First, due to the low probability of detection, jamming, and intrusion, FSO and LiFi offer an extremely survivable form of communications when in direct conflict with a near-peer adversary.”
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