Indoor Location Services Using Distributed Lighting Network
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current lighting networks lack efficient methods for accurately mapping devices and providing indoor location services, relying primarily on environmental factors like light output and occupancy, which limits their ability to offer precise location determination within indoor spaces.
Innovation Solution
A distributed lighting network that uses lighting fixtures with known locations to provide wireless beacon signals, allowing an indoor location services module to determine the location of mobile devices by processing multiple sets of distance measurements obtained through different methods, ensuring high accuracy in indoor location services.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If lighting fixtures are used to provide wireless beacon signals for indoor location services, then location determination accuracy is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
Lighting fixtures are designed to perform multiple functions: providing illumination, sensing environmental factors (occupancy, ambient light), and transmitting wireless beacon signals for location services. This multi-functionality allows the same device to serve both traditional lighting purposes and new location determination purposes, improving measurement precision without requiring separate dedicated devices.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an indoor location services module that processes wireless beacon signals from lighting fixtures to determine mobile device locations. This intermediary module handles the complex signal processing and coordinate transformation, keeping the lighting fixtures themselves relatively simple while still achieving high location accuracy through the coordinated system.
2Measurement precision
If multiple measurement methods are used to determine lighting fixture locations, then mapping accuracy is improved, but processing complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system employs multiple measurement methods (e.g., wireless signal strength, visual recognition, RFID) to determine lighting fixture locations and processes the results to assign coordinates. By using multiple independent measurement approaches, the system obtains feedback from different sources, allowing it to cross-validate and improve mapping accuracy while distributing the processing load across different measurement systems.
3Adaptability or versatility
If lighting fixtures provide both illumination and location services, then system versatility is improved, but energy consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines location determination functionality with existing lighting fixtures by integrating wireless beacon transmission into the same device that provides illumination. This merging eliminates the need for separate location tracking infrastructure, achieving system versatility while potentially reducing overall energy consumption compared to deploying dedicated location tracking devices throughout the space.
Data Source
AI summary
A method includes the steps of obtaining distance measurements between a device and a number of lighting fixtures, processing the distance measurements to assign coordinates to each one of the lighting fixtures, and facilitating registration of the coordinates of a subset of the lighting fixtures to obtain registered coordinates for all of the lighting fixtures. The coordinates indicate a relative location of each one of the lighting fixtures with respect to one another. The registered coordinates indicate a location of each lighting fixture in a desired coordinate space. Accordingly, a location of a lighting fixture within a desired coordinate space can be easily obtained, which may enable significant additional functionality of the lighting fixture.