Combining Optical and Electronic simulation models for the assessment of Visible Light Positioning Systems

Research activities to establish precise and reliable Indoor Positioning Systems (IPS) have significantly gained momentum in the recent years. Visible Light Positioning (VLP), an approach to establish a positioning system by utilizing the spectrum of the visible light that is emitted from one or multiple light sources and received at a photosensitive device, has shown to be a promising candidate for the fulfillment of this task. Still, despite the huge progress in improving the basic technology, some discrepancies between the achievable accuracies reported in simulation based studies and real world implementations become aware. This is because in the simulations the effects of the electronic components necessary for a real world implementation are often simplified or even not considered at all. In this study, we propose an approach of an electronic receiver design methodology that is combining ray-tracing for the simulation of the optical channel with simulations of electronic circuits in Simulink/Simscape. By interfacing these two domains, a system level assessment of applications in the field of Visible Light Positioning can be realized. In addition, we demonstrate in an exemplary implementation how the electronic design can be optimized utilizing the method of fingerprinting.