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Robust joint optical delay and received signal strength positioning for visible light communication systems using
Iván Sánchez1, Pablo Palacios Játiva2, María Camila Reyes2
1Department of Networking and Telecommunication Engineering, Universidad de Las Américas, Quito, Ecuador. ivan.sanchez.salazar@udla.edu.ec.
Scientific Reports
|May 23, 2026
Summary
This study introduces a novel visible light positioning framework combining optical delay and received signal strength for accurate indoor localization. The new method overcomes limitations of existing systems, offering robust performance in challenging environments.
Area of Science:
- Optical Communications and Sensing
- Indoor Localization Technologies
- Wireless Sensor Networks
Background:
- Accurate indoor positioning is crucial for intelligent spaces and industrial automation but remains challenging in Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS)-denied areas.
- Visible Light Communication (VLC) and Visible Light Positioning (VLP) offer promising solutions with dual illumination/communication functions and high localization potential.
- Existing VLP systems suffer from sensitivity to receiver orientation, nonlinearities, ambient light, multipath effects, and hardware distortions, limiting practical accuracy.
Purpose of the Study:
- To propose a robust joint optical delay-received signal strength (RSS) positioning framework for Visible Light Communication (VLC) systems.
- To develop a unified formulation that fuses delay-derived pseudorange and received optical power measurements, accounting for non-Gaussian distortions and timing biases.
- To enable accurate and calibration-efficient indoor optical positioning in challenging, nonlinear VLP landscapes.
Main Methods:
- Proposed a joint optical delay-RSS positioning framework using a weighted negative log-likelihood formulation.
- Explicitly addressed non-Gaussian measurement distortions and per-link timing biases in the optical domain.
- Employed particle swarm optimization (PSO) for joint estimation of user position and per-link timing biases.
Main Results:
- Achieved a Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) of [Formula: see text] and a 95th percentile error of [Formula: see text] in a Line-of-Sight (LOS)-dominant scenario.
- Outperformed conventional RSS-only, pseudorange-only, and joint pseudorange-RSS (PSO + Huber) baseline methods.
- Demonstrated robust operation in highly nonlinear and multimodal VLC localization scenarios.
Conclusions:
- The proposed joint optical delay-RSS framework offers a calibration-efficient and Lambertian-consistent solution for indoor optical positioning.
- This approach provides a promising basis for accurate localization in smart buildings, hospitals, warehouses, and industrial environments.
- Further experimental validation is necessary to confirm deployment-readiness beyond the simulation-based scope.
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