A Survey of Positioning Systems Using Visible LED Lights

© 2018 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.As Global Positioning System (GPS) cannot provide satisfying performance in indoor environments, indoor positioning technology, which utilizes indoor wireless signals instead of GPS signals, has grown rapidly in recent years. Meanwhile, visible light communication (VLC) using light devices such as light emitting diodes (LEDs) has been deemed to be a promising candidate in the heterogeneous wireless networks that may collaborate with radio frequencies (RF) wireless networks. In particular, light-fidelity has a great potential for deployment in future indoor environments because of its high throughput and security advantages. This paper provides a comprehensive study of a novel positioning technology based on visible white LED lights, which has attracted much attention from both academia and industry. The essential characteristics and principles of this system are deeply discussed, and relevant positioning algorithms and designs are classified and elaborated. This paper undertakes a thorough investigation into current LED-based indoor positioning systems and compares their performance through many aspects, such as test environment, accuracy, and cost. It presents indoor hybrid positioning systems among VLC and other systems (e.g., inertial sensors and RF systems). We also review and classify outdoor VLC positioning applications for the first time. Finally, this paper surveys major advances as well as open issues, challenges, and future research directions in VLC positioning systems.Peer reviewe

Visible light communications-based indoor positioning via compressed sensing

This paper presents an approach for visible light communication-based indoor positioning using compressed sensing. We consider a large number of light emitting diodes (LEDs) simultaneously transmitting their positional information and a user device equipped with a photo-diode. By casting the LED signal separation problem into an equivalent compressed sensing framework, the user device is able to detect the set of nearby LEDs using sparse signal recovery algorithms. From this set, and using proximity method, position estimation is proposed based on the concept that if signal separation is possible, then overlapping light beam regions lead to decrease in positioning error due to increase in the number of reference points. The proposed method is evaluated in a LED-illuminated large-scale indoor open-plan office space scenario. The positioning accuracy is compared against the positioning error lower bound of the proximity method, for various system parameters.Comment: to appear in IEEE Communication Letter

Indoor localization based on multiple LEDs position estimation

This paper describes the simulation results and hardware implementation of an inexpensive, low-complexity LED based indoor positioning system. Localization by multiple LEDs estimation model (MLEM) approximates position of a mobile receiver by the acquisition of positional information from LED transmitters. Multiple LED orientation can either be with or without overlap. Receivers in a no-overlap LED orientation experience only single access while multiple access receivers are designed for orientations with overlaps. Single and multiple access systems were developed and implemented by the use of low cost ATMEG 328 microcontroller. Since multiple LEDs transmit data at the same wavelength and are asynchronous, overlap in multiple access system causes interference. The possibility of this interference is reduced by packet based pulse duration multiplexing (PDM) and a low duty cycle transmission protocol. By the use of MLEM, root mean square error in position estimation is reduced to about 1 percent of the length an indoor location. Experimental results show that overlap increases positional accuracy over a wider coverage region and that the multiple access system allows for a more reliable positioning

An Implementation Approach and Performance Analysis of Image Sensor Based Multilateral Indoor Localization and Navigation System

Optical camera communication (OCC) exhibits considerable importance nowadays in various indoor camera based services such as smart home and robot-based automation. An android smart phone camera that is mounted on a mobile robot (MR) offers a uniform communication distance when the camera remains at the same level that can reduce the communication error rate. Indoor mobile robot navigation (MRN) is considered to be a promising OCC application in which the white light emitting diodes (LEDs) and an MR camera are used as transmitters and receiver respectively. Positioning is a key issue in MRN systems in terms of accuracy, data rate, and distance. We propose an indoor navigation and positioning combined algorithm and further evaluate its performance. An android application is developed to support data acquisition from multiple simultaneous transmitter links. Experimentally, we received data from four links which are required to ensure a higher positioning accuracy

Optical wireless communication based indoor positioning algorithms: performance optimisation and mathematical modelling

In this paper, the performance of the optimal beam radius indoor positioning (OBRIP) and two-receiver indoor positioning (TRIP) algorithms are analysed by varying system parameters in the presence of an indoor optical wireless channel modelled in line of sight configuration. From all the conducted simulations, the minimum average error value obtained for TRIP is 0.61 m against 0.81 m obtained for OBRIP for room dimensions of 10 m × 10 m × 3 m. In addition, for each simulated condition, TRIP, which uses two receivers, outperforms OBRIP and reduces position estimation error up to 30%. To get a better understanding of error in position estimation for different combinations of beam radius and separation between light emitting diodes, the 90th percentile error is determined using a cumulative distribution frequency (CDF) plot, which gives an error value of 0.94 m for TRIP as compared to 1.20 m obtained for OBRIP. Both algorithms also prove to be robust towards change in receiver tilting angle, thus providing flexibility in the selection of the parameters to adapt to any indoor environment. In addition, in this paper, a mathematical model based on the concept of raw moments is used to confirm the findings of the simulation results for the proposed algorithms. Using this mathematical model, closed-form expressions are derived for standard deviation of uniformly distributed points in an optical wireless communication based indoor positioning system with circular and rectangular beam shapes

Optical boundaries for LED-based indoor positioning system

Overlap of footprints of light emitting diodes (LEDs) increases the positioning accuracy of wearable LED indoor positioning systems (IPS) but such an approach assumes that the footprint boundaries are defined. In this work, we develop a mathematical model for defining the footprint boundaries of an LED in terms of a threshold angle instead of the conventional half or full angle. To show the effect of the threshold angle, we compare how overlaps and receiver tilts affect the performance of an LED-based IPS when the optical boundary is defined at the threshold angle and at the full angle. Using experimental measurements, simulations, and theoretical analysis, the effect of the defined threshold angle is estimated. The results show that the positional time when using the newly defined threshold angle is 12 times shorter than the time when the full angle is used. When the effect of tilt is considered, the threshold angle time is 22 times shorter than the full angle positioning time. Regarding accuracy, it is shown in this work that a positioning error as low as 230 mm can be obtained. Consequently, while the IPS gives a very low positioning error, a defined threshold angle reduces delays in an overlap-based LED IPS