High angular resolution visible light positioning using a quadrant photodiode angular diversity aperture receiver (QADA)

The increasing use of white LEDs for indoor illumination provides a significant opportunity for Visible Light Positioning (VLP). The challenge is to design a small, unobtrusive sensor that can be incorporated into mobile devices to provide accurate measurements for triangulation. We present experimental results for a novel angle of arrival (AOA) detector that has been designed for use in a VLP system. The detector is composed of a transparent aperture in an opaque screen that is located above a quadrant photodiode (PD), separated by a known vertical distance. Light passing through the aperture from an LED casts a light spot onto the quadrant PD. The position of this spot, coupled with knowledge of the height of the aperture above the quadrant PD, provides sufficient information to determine both the incident and polar angles of the light. Experiments, using a prototype detector, show that detector is capable of accurate estimation of AOA. The root mean square errors (rMSE) were less than 0.11° for all the measured positions on the test bed, with 90% of positions having an rMSE of less than 0.07°.