Privacy preserving image sensor based visible light positioning receiver utilizing an ultra-flat singlet lens with high field-of-view and high aperture

Abstract

Visible Light Positioning (VLP) is a promising candidate to enable widespread availability of location-based services in indoor environments. Existing VLP receiver designs achieve satisfactory accuracy, but often neglect cost-effectiveness and size constraints. To address this, we designed an ultra-flat singlet lens with a height of only 20 μm to be utilized in a compact image sensor-based VLP receiver. This specially designed lens brings the advantage of cost-effective manufacturing, high aperture, high field-of-view and short focal length. Compared to conventional cameras used in VLP systems, the presented optical receiver can be used in scenarios where privacy concerns play a critical role, like in wearable devices or in privacy-sensitive environments, as no perceivable image of the scene or the user is formed on the image sensor. With two separate VLP approaches, image processing based triangulation and machine learning assisted fingerprinting, we demonstrate positioning accuracy under 10 cm in an experimental setup. Furthermore, the demonstrator is integrated in an autonomously driving robot that has to avoid a geofence, exemplifying a location-based service.