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

Sihua Shao, Adrian Salustri, Abdallah Khreishah, Chenren Xu, Shuai Ma

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

17 Scopus citations

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.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)11429-11439
Number of pages11
JournalIEEE Internet of Things Journal
Volume10
Issue number13
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 1 2023

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Signal Processing
  • Information Systems
  • Hardware and Architecture
  • Computer Science Applications
  • Computer Networks and Communications

Keywords

  • Backscatter communication
  • Internet of Things (IoT)
  • retroreflector
  • ultralow-power
  • visible light communication (VLC)
  • visible light positioning

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