Indoor Positioning and Guiding System Based on VLC for Visually Impaired People

Abstract

More and more innovative devices with the wireless communication technology based on radio frequency (RF) embedded makes our everyday live easier and offer a healthier life behavior due to improved local or remote transmission capabilities. Internet of things (IoT) has already become reality, therefore the RF space becomes increasingly congested. Alternative technologies as those based on visible light or IR comes to unload the overcrowded RF spectrum and bring new applications (such as optical camera communication – OCC) and local-based services since they allow to be embedded in small devices with Light Emitting Diodes (LED). The Indoor Positioning and Guiding System (IPGS) described in this paper consists of a number of optical transmitters (oTx) with LEDs embedded into each illumination fixture and a low cost, wearable device as optical receiver (oRx) with solar panel, intended to be used by Visually Impaired People (VIP) when accessing public institutions as schools, museums, indoor stations as underground metro or airports with a dedicated infrastructure to support IPGS. The oRx, wear on by VIPs, receives the optical signal piggybacked by light in a form of a sound message when accessing crowded zones where the dedicated infrastructure is installed. The technique used for IPGS setup is the optical Received Signal Strength (oRSS). The specific, particular scenario described here is the main entrance hall of our university.