Optical Wireless Communication based Two Receiver Indoor Positioning Algorithm

This research focuses on developing a positioning algorithm for Optical Wireless Communication (OWC) based indoor positioning systems. The proposed Two Receiver Indoor Positioning (TRIP) algorithm has the potential to overcome the light beam overlapping problem and locate the position of an object in an indoor environment precisely. The current research builds upon a previously proposed positioning algorithm named Optimal Beam Radius Indoor Positioning (OBRIP) algorithm and proposes the use of two receivers to detect the optical signal to further reduce the error in position estimation while also investigating the best values for important parameters like beam radius of transmitting Light-Emitting Diodes (LED), grid size of LED array and number of LEDs in an array for multiple room shapes. The performance analysis of TRIP algorithm and subsequent comparison with the performance of OBRIP algorithm is also carried out in this research using MATLAB simulations. From the simulation results, this algorithm proves to be effective for a room with floor dimensions of 10 m x 10 m yielding an average error in position estimation whose value is 0.69 m and surpasses the performance of the OBRIP with 30% lesser average error values. Using this technology for indoor positioning and tracking in the medical sector, and extending help to elderly dementia affected patients is a noble and intriguing idea.