The physical properties of laser light make it a perfect medium for a plethora of applications. Examples include high-bandwidth data communication thanks to its fast modulation speed, efficient power delivery given its high energy density, and fine-grained human sensing and object tracking because of its nanometer-level wavelength. Despite its potential, laser light still faces numerous challenges in emergent mobile applications, given its high directionality, sensitivity to environmental dynamics, and constraints in laser hardware.

In this talk, I will describe our effort of realizing robust communication and sensing with laser light for mobile applications. I will begin with realizing robust air-water communication and sensing with laser light. The ability to communicate and sense across the air-water boundary is essential for efficient exploration and monitoring of the underwater world. I will present our systems to allow an aerial drone to communicate with and locate underwater robots. I will also introduce our latest work Lasertag that overcomes laser’s high directionality to enable laser tethering with highly mobile targets using portable hardware. Finally, I will overview our years-long endeavor of noninvasive glucose sensing with laser light and conclude with future work.