Characteristics of Angular Precision and Dilution of Precision for Optical Wireless Positioning

The challenges of optical wireless positioning are addressed in this paper by a thorough investigation of angle of arrival (AOA) positioning characteristics. The overall positioning precision for AOA positioning is studied in terms of two contributing factors—being angular precision and geometric dilution of precision (DOP). Angular precision is characterized for an optical wireless receiver having an especially wide angular field-of-view (FOV). Geometric DOP is characterized for optical beacons deployed in the form of triangle, square, and hexagon cell geometries. The mean and standard deviation of the positioning errors are extracted from the positioning error distributions for each of the three cell geometries. It is found that the overarching goal to establish low and uniform positioning error distributions can be met by implementing an optical wireless receiver with a wide angular FOV and by implementing the optical beacon geometry with a correspondingly small height-to-side-length ratio. The prospects of these findings are discussed for future optical wireless positioning systems.