Modelling and evaluation of a multi-tag LED-ID platform

TL;DR

This paper models and evaluates a multi-tag LED-ID system, analyzing interference and proximity issues through theoretical, simulation, and real-world experiments to optimize dense tag placement.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive theoretical model and simulation for multi-LED ID environments, complemented by real-world experiments under various lighting conditions.

Findings

Interference levels increase with dense tag placement.

Optimal proximity thresholds depend on external lighting.

Model accurately predicts real-world performance.

Abstract

An LED-ID system works like an electronic "tag" transmitting a short digital broadcasted message. Low complexity LED-ID installations, being a subset of an emerging class of visible light communication (VLC) systems, may be considered as a replacement of popular RFID tags, Bluetooth tags and Wi-Fi beacons. In this work, we focus on multi LED-ID environments with "dense" tag placement. The problems that we focus on are estimating the level of cross-tag interference and the issue of tag proximity: how closely can we place the tags without making the system unusable? We present a theoretical model with a numerical simulation of sample arrangements. We also describe the results of experiments we conducted in a real- world test environment under different external lighting conditions.