The 1st International Workshop on Optical Wireless Communications in China (OWCC'12)

Fundamental Analysis for Indoor Visible Light Positioning System

Penghua Lou a,b, Hongming Zhang a,b, Xie Zhang a,b, Minyu Yao a,b, Zhengyuan Xu a,b
b

Department of Electronic Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China Tsinghua National Laboratory for Information Science and Technology (TNList), Beijing, China xuzy@tsinghua.edu.cn

AbstractThis paper describes the prototype of an indoor positioning system (IPS) using LED identification (LED-ID) technology. LED sources transmit unique ID codes which identify users' position. An optical link budget is analyzed and simulated. Our lab prototype can satisfy the required accuracy in some coarse location environments. Keywordsindoor positioning system, LED identification, visible light communication, effective positioning radius.

In the paper, we first demonstrate the indoor positioning system prototype. Some numerical analyses for the proposed system are performed, and a MATLABbased simulation is made to study the effectiveness and accuracy of positioning algorithm, the probability distribution of detection and the acceptable movement speed. Thereafter, it is concluded that our lab prototype basically satisfies the required accuracy in some coarse location environments. The paper is organized as follows. In section II, the design of indoor positioning system is described, and then we discuss the transmitter and channel models in a hallway scenario. In section III, a simulation is presented to analyze the performance of positioning algorithm. Finally, conclusions are in section IV. II. SYSTEM DESIGN AND ANALYSIS

I.

INTRODUCTION

In the past decades, outdoor positioning has been studied extensively and systems like Global Positioning System (GPS) has been studied and developed. In general, GPS needs to receive signals from at least 4 satellites, which is impossible inside some buildings [1]. Thus, other technologies for indoor positioning are being developed such as RF based positioning and infrared positioning. However, those positioning systems are not widely popular so far, due to high power consumption and lower resolution and accuracy. Meanwhile, light-emitting diode (LED) has been considered as the most potential lighting technology of the 21st century for its high brightness, affordable cost, low power consumption and minimal heat generation [2]. Additionally, LEDs can also be modulated at relatively high rate which is proper for transmitting data signal. Therefore, LEDs could be utilized for both illumination and communication, such as LED-identification (LED-ID) based communication [3][4]. In this paper, we apply LED-ID technology to supply variable position information for indoor positioning system.

In this section, we introduce an indoor positioning system using LED-ID technology. The system model is shown in Fig. 1, which consists of transmitter, optical wireless channel and receiver. The details are as follows.

Fig. 1. System Model

978-1-4673-2997-2/12/$31.00 2012 IEEE

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LED sources of visible light ID are modulated with baseband On-Off Keying of 200kbps data rate, in conjunction with Direct Detection (DD) for data demodulation at the receiver. Since it is desired to maintain visibility and flicker-free operation, a symmetric Manchester encoder/decoder composed by microprocessor is applied. At the transmitter, we design a constant-current drive circuit using power MOSET and low noise Operational Amplifier to achieve 220mA driving current for 3W LED sources. At the receiver, the signal preprocessing circuits combine with weak signal pre-amplifier and signal shaping circuit. Both of the transmitter and receiver circuits create USB, SPI, UART interfaces to realize communication between our system and Personal Digital Assistant (PDA). We next introduce simplified models for transmitter and optical channel in a hallway scenario, where coarse location is applicable. A. Transmitter Model In order to satisfy the standard for lighting design in aforementioned scenario, we choose 3W LED as transmitter sources in the prototype. The power spectrum distribution St ( ) of the used LED is shown in Fig. 2, which was measured by an integrating sphere.

780 nm

Ft = 683

380 nm

St ( )V ( ) d

(2)

where V ( ) is the relative luminous efficiency function defined by CIE and it can be approximated by a Gaussian curve fitting [6] as follows:
V ( ) 1.019e 285.4( 0.559)
2

(3)

The luminous flux Ft is also a spatial integral of spatial luminous intensity, and we have the following relation [7]
Ft = I 0
max

2 g t ( ) sin d

(4)

where I 0 is the axial intensity, max is the maximum half angle and gt ( ) is the normalized spatial luminous intensity distribution. The spatial distribution g t ( ) is claimed to be a Lambertian radiation pattern [7][8], which would be written as:
gt ( ) = cos m ( )

(5)

where m is the order of Lambertian radiation. Thus, a simplified formula of the flux Ft is obtained.
Ft = I 0
max

2 cos m ( ) sin d

(6)

= 2 I 0 (m + 1) Fig. 3 shows that the LED source in our prototype can be assumed as an ideal Lambertian radiation pattern with m=14.
1 0.9 0.8 Normalized Amplitude 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 Measured pattern Ideal Lambertian pattern (m=14)

Fig. 2. Measured spectrum distribution of LED source

0 -50

-40

-30

-20

-10

0 10 Angle ()

20

30

40

50

The optical power Pt of such LED is obtained from St ( ) as [5]

H

Fig. 3. Comparison between the actual and ideal Lambertian radiation pattern

Pt

S ( )d
t

(1)

B. Channel Model In an optical wireless link, the signal path loss is determined as follows:

The total luminous flux Ft is given as [5]

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L= d =
2

g t ( ) A cos( )
max

SNR =
(7)

I r2

2 gt ( ) sin d
m

2 tatal

2 thermal

I r2 2 + shot

(12)

(m + 1) cos ( ) A cos( ) 2 d 2

where is the angle between source beam axis and source-receiver line and is the angle between receiver normal and source-receiver line. Now we can obtain the received optical spectral density as S r ( ) = L S t ( ) The received optical power can be written as (8)

2 where thermal is the variance of thermal noise 2 stemming from the pre-amplifier, and shot is the variance of shot noise stemming from ambient light, which is a dominant one in the wireless optical communications. The shot noise variance is given by

[10]

2 shot = N 0 B (1022 A2 Hz ) B

(13)

where N 0 is the noise power spectral density and B is equivalent noise bandwidth, which is equal to the bit rate at OOK. III. SIMULATION RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Pr ( ) =

rH rL

S r ( ) d = L

rH rL

St ( ) d

(9)

At the receiver, we use a photodiode to convert optical power to electric power I r , which can be derived as Ir =
rH rL

In this section, we will discuss about the effective positioning radius, the probability distribution of detection and the acceptable movement speed. The following simulation and discussion is based on the assumption that the size of the scenario is 10m 2.5m3m, a 3W LED is located at the coordinate of (4, 1.25, 3) and the height of the receiver is 0.85m from the floor. A. The Effective Positioning Radius In the system, the available LED-ID received at the receiver is derived as the present location. Therefore, the effective illumination radius reflects the system positioning accuracy. Fig. 5 shows the SNR distribution as a function of distance. To achieve BER=10-6 it requires SNR=13.6dB in OOK communication system.

S r ( ) R ( ) d = L

rH rL

S ( ) R ( ) d
t

(10)

where R ( ) is the photodiode responsivity. Fig. 4 shows the responsivity of photodiode (THORLABS FDS100) that we used.
0.7 FDS100 0.6 Responsivity (A/W) 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 300 400 500 600 700 800 Wavelength (nm) 900 1000 1100

Fig. 4. The responsivity of photodiode (FDS100)

By calculating the integral of the spectrum distribution St ( ) (Fig. 2) and the photodiode responsivity R ( ) , the electric power can be simplified as Ir = L
rH rL

S ( ) R( )d = 0.131 L
t

(11)
Fig. 5. SNR distribution as a function of distance

The electrical signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at receiver is expressed as [9]

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From Fig. 5, the effective positioning radius of 1.3m is available, which is mainly dependent on the order of LED Lambertian radiation m . Suppose that the order m is small, then the beam is more divergent and the effective positioning radius will become larger. However, it is important to note that we should consider avoiding overlapping of two adjacent LEDs while selecting the radiation pattern of LED sources. B. The Probability Distribution of Detection The SNR distribution is not only a function of the distance between the receiver and the transmitter, but also a function of the pitch angle of the receiver. In practical applications, the receiver attitude is random, which leads to the probability distribution of detection. Fig. 6 shows the SNR distribution with radius=0.5m as the pitch angle varies. The probability reaches 89%.

From Fig. 7, we can find that the probability decreases slowly within the range of 0.8m, and then start decreasing rapidly that is resulted from an increasingly important part of the pitch angle in the SNR function. When the horizontal distance between transmitter and receiver is within 1.08m, the probability of detection is beyond 50%. C. The Acceptable Movement Speed As every LED source has an effective radius, the receivers' movement speed should be considered. The case when the receiver is moving parallel to the ground is studied. In the system, the bit rate is 200kbps, and one frame is made up of 4 bytes. Thus the time that LEDID sends once is 160s. If the effective positioning radius 1.3m is applied, the maximum movement speed is calculated as 1.3m 2/160 s=16.25km/s, that far exceeds the walking speed 0.85~1m/s. However, if this system is extended on the vehicle positioning applications, the bit rate should be increased to guarantee steady positioning. IV. CONCLUSIONS

Fig. 6. SNR distribution as a function of the pitch angle

In this paper, the LED-ID technology based on visible light communication is developed into a kind of indoor positioning system. We introduce an indoor localization prototype that has been built, and then report the simulation results for indoor scenarios based on MATLAB. Starting from the standardized requirements for hallway illumination, we select a 3W LED source with Lambertian order m=14. Concluded from the above discussions and simulations, we may state the following:

Fig. 7 shows the detection probability variation trend as the radius increases.
1 0.9 0.8 0.7 Probability 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 Radius (m) 1 1.2 1.4

The positioning accuracy, which is related to the effective positioning radius, reaches 1.3m. It is less than that most of wireless location or infrared location systems. If the receiver position is fixed, the detection depends on the pitch angle of the receiver, which is defined as the probability distribution detection. The probability is beyond 50% while the distance between the receiver and the vertical projection of LED source is within the range of 1.08m. The normal movement speed in interior environment is completely acceptable in our positioning system.

Fig. 7. The detection probability trend as a function of radius

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In summation, our system prototype can meet the location accuracy in indoor environment to locate both moving and static objects. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This work was supported by Tsinghua National Laboratory for Information Science and Technology (TNList) Cross-discipline Foundation (2011Z02289), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No.61171066, 60977003). REFERENCES
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