LiFi with 5G for the Smart Factory

The ongoing shop floor digitalization confronts manufacturers with challenges in computer networks. Wi-Fi became a standard for enabling mobile applications in factories but suffers from operating in the shared industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) radio band, which makes Wi-Fi networks prone to interference from wireless networks that operate in parallel. Consequently, Wi-Fi is a less reliable wireless network technology for smart factories. LiFi and 5G are alternatives that do not rely on ISM bands. With a combination of 5G and LiFi we reach flexibility, reliability, wide coverage, and high throughput for fixed and mobile devices in factories. In this paper, we demonstrate the use of LiFi as a non-3GPP access technology for the 5G core network and describe our initial testing of the N3IWF implementation. Besides, this paper describes a multistage demonstrator set-up, which allows to conduct initial validation tests in a distributed testbed environment. This approach enables the direct migration of developed system components into a real factory environment considering the rough environment of manufacturing halls.