Indoor Positioning Methods Using VLC LEDs

Visible light communications (VLC)‐based techniques employ fluorescent lamps and LEDs. This chapter focuses on several fundamental research areas of indoor positioning using VLC technology based on LEDs. It looks into channel multi‐access which is one of the most important issues, as there are usually multiple light sources involved competing for the same transmission time. The protocol employed directly determines the system performance in terms of complexity and service outage. The chapter discusses the use of basic framed slotted ALOHA (BFSA) protocol that enables the transmitters (LED bulbs) to work asynchronously, thus no physical connections among them are required, lowering system complexity and cost. The accuracy achieved is also better using VLC technology than radio frequency (RF)‐based techniques. The chapter investigates the effects of several realistic factors (e.g., installation of LED bulbs and orientation angle of the receiver) to better simulate system performance when deployed into a real indoor environment.