Utilising noise effects on infrared pattern reception for position estimation on a grid plane

In this paper we present a way to locate the position of a moving target on a grid plane of about 15 square meters with an estimation error of less than half of the grid node distance. The estimation method is based on the success rate that the infrared patterns transmitted from two constant positions is received by the moving target. Several aspects of the reception such as the number of the expected, scrambled or out of order patterns that are recognised are considered. They are all playing an important role in determining the coordinates of the target. An ultra low cost system architecture based on commercial components is presented. A proper carrier filter of 1 MHz centre frequency is also studied in order to achieve fast coordinate estimation. The accuracy of the position estimation algorithm is also discussed with respect to the effect of the grid node distance.