Model-Based Beam-Steered Optical Wireless Positioning with Single-LED Single-Photodiode for 3D Localization

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel 3D optical wireless positioning system using a single beam-steered LED and a single photodiode, achieving centimeter-level accuracy without complex hardware.

Contribution

It introduces a new architecture that uses beam steering and signal strength variations for 3D localization, reducing hardware complexity and cost.

Findings

Achieves centimeter-level 3D localization accuracy in simulations.

Develops a genetic algorithm for optimal steering pattern design.

Provides a model-based estimator and closed-form solutions for position estimation.

Abstract

State-of-the-art optical wireless positioning (OWP) commonly reaches centimeter-level accuracy by depending on dense multi-light-emitting diodes (LED) infrastructures, photodiode (PD) arrays, or image-sensor receivers, incurring hardware complexity and deployment cost. This paper introduces a single beam-steered LED, single-PD OWP architecture that achieves three-dimensional (3D) localization without receiver rotation, cameras, or PD arrays; the core idea is to steer the transmitter through K known orientations and exploit the resulting received-signal-strength variations at the PD to estimate LED-to-PD direction and distance. We derive a composite Cramer-Rao lower bound and position-error bound (PEB) for the joint observation model, and cast the steering-pattern design as a genetic algorithm that minimizes the PEB over a 3D testbed. We develop both model-based a constrained nonlinear estimator and closed-form direction estimators: a statistically efficient generalized least squares solution, and a lightweight weighted least squares approximation. Simulations demonstrate centimeter-level accuracy for 3D OWP with a single beam-steered LED and a single PD.