Farzam Farbiz - Assistant Professor, Computer Engineering and Information Technology department of Amirkabir University of Technology, Hafez Ave. Tehran ۱۵۹۱۴, Iran
Adrian David Cheok - National University of Singapore, NUS
Yue Li - National University of Singapore, NUS

This paper describes a novel system for indoor positioning and navigation with particular benefits for mobile and wearable computers. It can seamlessly extend outdoor GPS tracking to the indoor environment. In a novel manner, fluorescent light is used as the medium to transmit information, which is encoded by using a pulsefrequency modulation technique. The user receives the encoded light information through a photo-receiver which gives positioning information for indoor mobile and wearable computers. We design an economical transmitter circuit by adding few components to a commercial electronic ballast circuit for fluorescent lamps with price of less than 10 USD. The propose system can be used in indoor guidance and navigation applications.

indoor tracking, wearable computer, smart space, ubiquitous computing, electronic ballast