Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport The International Maritime Transport and Logistics Conference “Marlog 10” Digitalization in Ports & Maritime Industry 13 – 15 June 2021 212 A Design for Wirless Commuincation System for Smart Ports Mahmoud Beshr (1) , Moustafa H. Aly (2) and Ivan Andonovic (3) (1) Assistant Professor, Arab Academy for Science and Technology and Maritime Transport, Alexandria, Egypt, mbeshr@aast.edu (2) Professor, Arab Academy for Science and Technology and Maritime Transport, Alexandria, Egypt, mosaly@aast.edu (3) Professor, Strathclyde University, Glasgow, United Kingdom, i.andonovic@strath.ac.uk ABSTRACT Communication systems and infrastructures are considered main enabler for smart ports. The Light Fidelity (LIFI) communication system can provide cost effective, easy to install, fast, and secure communication system as it can make use of already installed lighting systems in the ports to provide communication link. Thus, LIFI ensures interference free with other radio frequency communication systems. Given the privileges of LIFI communication systems, this paper aims to test and evaluate the adoption of LIFI communication systems in ports and how LED layout can affect the system. A design tool for system planning is developed to determine optimum LED placement that provides a specified system performance, conforms to illumination standards and minimizes the variation of the Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) across the communication link thereby maintaining a good quality of service (QoS). The evaluation of SNR, BIT Error rate (BER), data rate and illumination level are conducted for representative metrological conditions over the year to ensure smart port system performance and efficiency. Keywords : Light Fidelity (LIFI) Performance, LED Layout, Smart Ports, Metrological Conditions I. INTRODUCTION Although the industry of ports and container shipping is often regarded as being conservative and resistant to change due to its nature and processes, the utilization of recent communication system technologies can lead to major enhancements in port system efficiency [1],[37]. One of the main pillars that are promising in this regard is smart ports. Despite being promising, smart ports face many challenges, one of these key challenges is to have a well-established wireless communication system