ENLIGHTEM: European Training Network in Low-energy Visible Light IoT Systems

LED lighting has taken off, but the huge communication potential of LED luminaires remains largely untapped by the consumer market.
-- By using visible light as a communication medium, Visible Light Communication (VLC) can turn every LED light bulb into a transceiver that can complement the existing RF infrastructure, taking the pressure off the ever increasing demand for radio spectrum.
-- VLC is viewed today as a very promising emerging technology and its potential for future 5G networks has been acknowledged.

As VLC-capable LEDs become increasingly ubiquitous, their networked communications will become increasingly attractive.
-- As the Internet of Things (IoT) continues to scale up, many classes of IoT devices will leverage visible light and our pervasive lighting infrastructures to bypass the increasingly crowded radio spectrum.
-- Going forward, the convergence of solid state lighting pervasiveness, networked VLC, and an ever-growing IoT will require highly trained professionals at the intersection of VLC and networked embedded systems.

The goal of this European Training Network (ETN) is to prepare a set of Early Stage Researchers with the skills to unleash the full potential of networked VLC systems in the Beyond-5G world. This will be achieved:
-- by offering a multidisciplinary research program to train the Early Stage Researchers in a wide array of crucial aspects of networked VLC and its applications;
-- by providing the Early Stage Researchers with the guidance of top-notch specialists from academia and industry with vast experience in VLC, networked embedded systems, as well as closely related areas.

This will be the first ETN fully dedicated to the development of VLC professionals in Europe. These professionals will be central to achieving a competitive advantage in Europe in terms of high-speed VLC, VLC-enabled IoT, VLC/RF integration, and the application of VLC technologies to networked embedded devices.