Performance improvement of indoor positioning using light-emitting diodes and an image sensor for light-emitting diode communication

Abstract. Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are expected to replace existing lighting technologies in the near future because of the potential dual function of LED light (i.e., wireless communication and lighting) in the context of visible light communication (VLC). We propose a highly precise indoor positioning algorithm using lighting LEDs, an image sensor, and VLC. In the proposed algorithm, three LEDs transmit their three-dimensional coordinate information, which is received and demodulated by a single image sensor at an unknown position. The unknown position is then calculated from the geometrical relations of the LED images created on the image sensor plane. We describe the algorithm in detail. A simulation of the proposed algorithm is presented in this paper. We also compare the performance of this algorithm with that of our previously proposed algorithm. The comparison indicates significant improvement in positioning accuracy because of the simple algorithmic structure and low computational complexity. This technique does not require any angular measurement, which is needed in the contemporary positioning algorithms using LEDs and image sensor. The simulation results show that the proposed system can estimate the unknown position to an accuracy of 0.001 m inside the approximate positioning area when the pixel value is >3000.