R-VLCP: Channel Modeling and Simulation in Retroreflective Visible Light Communication and Positioning Systems

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

7-1-2023

Abstract

Retroreflective visible light communication and positioning (R-VLCP) is a novel ultralow-power Internet of Things (IoT) technology leveraging indoor light infrastructures. Compared to traditional VLCP, R-VLCP offers several additional favorable features, including self-alignment, low-size, weight, and power (SWaP), glaring-free, and sniff-proof. In analogy to RFID, R-VLCP employs a microwatt optical modulator (e.g., LCD shutter) to manipulate the intensity of the reflected light from a corner-cube retroreflector (CCR) to the photodiodes (PDs) mounted on a light source. In our previous works, we derived a closed-form expression for the retroreflection channel model, assuming that the PD is much smaller than the CCR in geometric analysis. In this article, we generalize the channel model to arbitrary size of PD and CCR. The received optical power is fully characterized relative to the sizes of PD and CCR, and the 3-D location of CCR. We also develop a custom and open-source ray tracing simulator - RetroRay, and use it to validate the channel model. Performance evaluation of area spectral efficiency and horizontal location error is carried out based on the channel model validated by RetroRay. The results reveal that increasing the size of PD and the density of CCRs improves communication and positioning performance with diminishing returns.

Identifier

85149418615 (Scopus)

Publication Title

IEEE Internet of Things Journal

External Full Text Location

https://doi.org/10.1109/JIOT.2023.3245096

e-ISSN

23274662

First Page

11429

Last Page

11439

Issue

13

Volume

10

Grant

OIA-1757207

Fund Ref

National Science Foundation

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