Three-dimensional light positioning algorithm with filtering techniques for indoor environments

Abstract

This paper introduces an indoor positioning system based on visible light communication technology with three-dimensional positioning capability. Light-emitting diodes are employed as transmitters, with photodiodes as receivers to obtain the received signal strength (RSS) information. Based on the trilateration technique, the proposed algorithm is able to calculate horizontal coordinates of the receiver with RSS information, after which the height of the receiver is estimated. The system does not require other measurements such as time-of-arrival or angle-of-arrival, thus system design and costs are simplified and minimized. Basic framed slotted ALOHA is applied as the channel access method to enable asynchronous transmissions. In addition, Kalman and particle filters are used in order to realize target tracking. Results show that both filters help to increase the positioning accuracy and the particle filter exhibits a better performance than the Kalman filter, with a higher computational complexity.