Received Signal Strength Visible Light Positioning-based Precision Drone Landing System

The next-generation automated inventory management solution revolves around unmanned aerial drones that operate without any human intervention, including during (wireless) charging. As the inductive power transfer system’s efficiency depends on its coil alignment, a precision landing system is required that is lightweight, accurate, and of low-cost. This manuscript demonstrates the potential of received signal strength (RSS) Visible Light Positioning (VLP) with a single photodiode (PD), which is inherently lightweight. A landing system is proposed, in which a PD-equipped drone self-localises with respect to light-emitting diodes (LEDs) that are integrated into the landing zone. The LEDs are furthermore sequentially strung together to cut costs, thereby forming a LED strip. Automated measurements characterise the particular (propagation) challenges and the positioning performance of 3D VLP on a small scale, when mimicking drone landing on a flat surface or in a commercial funnel. For the flat surface, a 50 Hz update rate and a vertical range up to 1 meter, the target of a third quartile VLP-only positioning error bounded by 3.5 cm is attained with multilateration and a 6-element LED strip. The presence of the reflections-inducing drone funnel degrades the positioning performance significantly. However, a sufficient accuracy can still be reached. Both configurations exhibit larger errors close to the landing zone.