Please join us in-person and online for the Engineering Annual Lecture at King's College London with Professor Harald Haas.

Our daily lives rely on fast, reliable connectivity, and as technology and AI continue to advance, the demands on our networks are increasing. Our existing networks - such as Wi-Fi - are sufficient for today's needs but can they keep up with the developments of tomorrow?

Harald Haas, Van Eck Professor of Engineering at the University of Cambridge, is exploring a promising alternative - optical wireless communications, including Li-Fi. This technology uses light to transmit data at exceptionally high speeds and has the potential to enhance our connectivity anywhere - underwater, on the ground and in space.

In this lecture, Professor Harald Haas will discuss the opportunities and challenges of the technology and how research in this area could shape the next generation of global communication networks. Scroll down for the lecture abstract.

Who is this lecture for?

This lecture is for anyone with an interest in learning about optical wireless communications. Experience of working or studying in the field is not required to be able to understand the lecture.

Agenda

17:00 - Opening remarks

17:05 - Lecture by Professor Harold Haas

17:50 - Q&A

18:05 - Drinks reception

19:00 - Event close

Abstract - Has the time for optical wireless communications finally arrived?

All major innovations of the past two decades have relied on connectivity. Smartphones and social media platforms, for example, would not have achieved their current success without mobile internet access. We are now entering the era of AI and autonomous systems, including self-driving vehicles and drones. At the same time, innovation in the smartphone space has largely saturated, and new large-scale breakthroughs - such as holographic displays enabling a fully immersive cyber-physical continuum - are anticipated.

To unlock the full potential of the AI era, fundamentally better networks are required: networks capable of delivering terabit-per-second data rates to end users, offering security from the physical layer upwards, operating with minimal or zero CO₂ footprint, and, crucially, being available everywhere rather than only in hotspots. Achieving this presents a substantial technical and economic challenge.

In this lecture, Professor Harald will show how optical wireless communications can help address these challenges and enhance connectivity underwater, on the ground, and in space, while outlining key obstacles and pathways forward.

Speaker bio:

Professor Harald Haas received his Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh, U.K., in 2001. He is the Van Eck Professor of Engineering at the University of Cambridge and leads the LiFi Research and Development Centre (LRDC). He is co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of pureLiFi Ltd. His research integrates photonics, communication theory and signal processing to advance optical wireless communications. He has co-authored over 800 journal and conference papers with more than 68,000 citations (Google Scholar) and holds over 50 patents. His two TED and one TEDx talks have attracted over 5.7 million views. His honours include the Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award, the IEEE VTS James Evans Avant Garde Award, the Humboldt Research Award, and a shortlist for the European Inventor Award. He is a Fellow of RAEng, RSE, IEEE, and IET.

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Livestream:

• This event will be livestreamed from 17:00 to 18:00 and a recording will be shared on the NMES Faculty YouTube channel.

• You will receive the livestream link closer to the event.

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