Optical wireless positioning by modulation of the optical source orientation

Positioning for optical wireless communications (OWC) has been the subject of numerous theoretical and experimental works in recent years, proposing various techniques for achieving sub-10 cm positioning errors. However, most of these techniques require multiple optical sources and/or multiple photoreceivers. In this paper, we take advantage of the growing interest in beam-steering techniques for OWC to propose a new positioning technique based on the possibility of changing the orientation of a single optical source to enable the two-dimensional positioning of a receiver equipped with a single photodetector, whatever its orientation and the optical power emitted. We detail the theoretical principles of this new method and then validate its operation, first using simulations to extract the main behavior, then experimentally on one dimension. The results obtained show that, in addition to the aforementioned advantages, the proposed method enables positioning with sub-10 cm errors, making it an interesting positioning technique for OWC with beam steering.