Self-Sufficient Sensor Node Embedding 2D Visible Light Positioning through a Solar Cell Module

Nowadays, indoor positioning (IP) is a relevant aspect in several scenarios within the Internet of Things (IoT) framework, e.g., Industry 4.0, Smart City and Smart Factory, in order to track, amongst others, the position of vehicles, people or goods. This paper presents the realization and testing of a low power sensor node equipped with long range wide area network (LoRaWAN) connectivity and providing 2D Visible Light Positioning (VLP) features. Three modulated LED (light emitting diodes) sources, the same as the ones commonly employed in indoor environments, are used. The localization feature is attained from the received light intensities performing optical channel estimation and lateration directly on the target to be localized, equipped with a low-power microcontroller. Moreover, the node exploits a solar cell, both as optical receiver and energy harvester, provisioning energy from the artificial lights used for positioning, thus realizing an innovative solution for self-sufficient indoor localization. The tests performed in a ~1 m² area reveal accurate positioning results with error lower than 5 cm and energy self-sufficiency even in case of radio transmissions every 10 min, which are compliant with quasi-real time monitoring tasks.