Characterization of Image Receivers for Optical Wireless Location Technology

In this letter, image receivers are characterized to address the challenges of indoor positioning with optical wireless location systems. Image receivers are studied according to their field-of-view (FOV) characteristics: 1) the first image receiver uses a wide-FOV (95°) microlens and 2) the second image receiver uses an ultrawide-FOV (130°) microlens. An angle of arrival characterization of the image receiver is used to quantify azimuthal, φ, and polar, θ, angles of incident light from optical beacons. A dilution of position (DOP) characterization is used to quantify geometrical effects of the optical beacon distribution. It is found that the ultrawide-FOV microlens (with a mean positioning error of 1.5 cm) can better image widely separated optical beacons, and thus operate at a lower DOP, compared with the wide-FOV microlens (with a mean positioning error of 3.2 cm).