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Sub-Centimeter Positioning Coming To Mobile Phones
Oooskar writes "SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping), a technique invented by NASA, defines the concept of building a 3D-map of the environment and simultaneously computing the position within it. Based on SLAM, Swedish startup 13th Lab has implemented real-time sub-centimeter local 3D-positioning by using only the sensors, most importantly the camera, already present in most mobile devices (demo video). The technology will be made available as a software platform for developers (sign up for beta). A first application demonstrating the technology has just been released for the iPad2. The technology should be available on other devices with similar computational power soon."
dut duh dut
Great, if only we had this before Abbotabad, we would have gotten the evil monger earlier!
Could have swore that was a Missile Defense system. Couldn't resist, sorry.
I'm sure there are lots of useful applications for this tech, but I doubt it will be popular in the cell phone market. A cell phone is not exactly a "precision" instrument to begin with, so how would you use such data in the real world?
I suspect this will find a lot of cool niches to fill in other devices, but phones? Not so much.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
This is not something like global, wide-area sub-millimeter GPS accuracy.
Cool, we would be hurtling bullets at them Matrix Style! Here we come with our ipad2 weapons! Apple is going to be the biggest weapon maker ever!
Cool tech. Could be very useful in a surgical bay, or inside a power plant's machinery, or..... But why put it in a cellphone? Can't cruise missiles already track phones to a precision much finer than the blast radius?
There's always a slight hint of jealousy when things like this come out. Either I had a similar idea and no time to work on it, or I kick myself for not coming up with the idea myself. c'est la vie
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From watching the video in the article, I can see this being useful for someone that needs to keeps his eyes on something (cut open patient being operated on) while giving him extra information. In other words, he can see an image on the screen of what the organ looks like while simultaneously seeing the tissue he's cutting through trying to get to it. You can modify that to other scientific uses as well. That will be further down the road though.
Sub centimetre? Now they'll be able to zero-in on where youve geo-cached your Johnston.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
"by using only the sensors, most importantly the camera, already present in most mobile devices"
Not going to help much if the device is inside something, like a pocket of a coat, a drawer, a bag or purse etc.
If it was out in the open, I could see it or hear it.
A lot of the foundation for SLAM came out of Kalman filtering... Kalman filtering is essentially a state estimation technique reconciling where you THINK you are versus where your sensors TELL you you are. The technology was originally developed and applied for use on the guidance systems for the Apollo missions. SLAM is a giant step beyond just Kalman filtering though and there has been a large body of work from a large number of university researches. To sum it up as NASA technology is a little misleading. www.awkwardengineer.com
I'm eagerly awaiting an android version of this. This software, an android phone and a robot platform controlled by the android phone: Cool stuff alert
Doolittle :
Bomb no.20 : To explode of course.
Fox: You took my sonar concept and applied it to every phone in the city. With half the city feeding you sonar, you can image all of Gotham. This is wrong.
Batman: I've got to find this man, Lucius.
Fox: At what cost?
Batman: The database is null-key encrypted. It can only be accessed by one person.
Fox: This is too much power for one person.
Batman: It's why I gave it to you. Only you can use it.
Fox: Spying on 30 million people isn't part of my job description.
Batman: This is an audio sample. If he talks within range of any phone in the city, you can triangulate his position.
Fox: I'll help you this one time. But consider this my resignation. As long as this machine is in Wayne Enterprises, I won't be.
Batman: When you're finished, type in your name.
"It looks like you've been standing at this urinal for more than 10 seconds, would you like some information on swollen prostate drugs or some soothing sounds of water dripping?"
I wonder if NASA are using this tech in their SPHERES thingies.
May the source be with you.
Wake me up when I can use my phone as a mouse...
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
Here is a Norwegian kid, planking on a thirty foot (dead) shark - http://www.vg.no/nyheter/utrolige-historier/artikkel.php?artid=10088644
If it doesn't drift away he would have gotten the best thirty foot shark coordinates ever! Too sad it is not out yet. It seems really useful for even the most unexpected circumstances.
One of the batman movies used the devices in a similar manner, though using echolocation (since that's more in line with the bat theme). The outcome was still the ability to "see" all of the places within range of phones in the city of Gotham, and was used to locate or track someone as I recall.
Johnston?
haha you are faget worse than Michael Jackston. Please to suck my dingdong.
If you could create a quick map of a lot, or of a building, using this type of technique, it could save countless hours of measurement and recordation. It would make quick building surveys of existing conditions take hours instead of days. This could have some very cool applications in my world, indeed!
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Sub centimetre? Now they'll be able to zero-in on where youve geo-cached your Johnston.
Just in case that some of you need to be educated and Jeremiah likes the Chemical Bros/Junior Boys Own/Faithless *grin*
Triangulation is accurate within 3 feet from John `O Groats to Lands End. Ordnance Survey Maps are 31337. Air-strikes are called in over AWACS by manual co-ordinates by special forces....... America has dumb F16's pilots with friendly fire attacks.
All cows eat grass!
Anyone know what algorithm they're using? I'm familiar with RatSLAM which creates a map from your movement with the camera but knows nothing about the 3-D structure of your surroundings - I like how they bounced balls of the wall and I'm curious how they infer 3D structure.
Here's an open source variant.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Thank you Slashdot for finally using metric!
:p
Your next job is to correctly spell centimetre!
It's a French word; it's a soft "er".
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
I half expected an Ad to show up floating around when they were moving the iPad2 around the room.
"I didn't do it."
.. to put an old cell phone on my lawn mower.
While I understand the general concept of how GPS locating works (your device captures timestamps from 3-or-more various global positioning satellites, then calculates where in the world you are), I've always been curious about how accurrate they can actually be.
If you are going to calculate, down to sub-centimeter distances, where your device is, wouldn't you need to know the EXACT location of these satellites, down to the sub-centimeter level of its altitude/lattitude/longitude? Like, if one of the satellites drifts slightly out of place from where they think it is, couldn't that throw off all calculations?
I always thought GPS could only determine your location down to roughly a 5-meter range because that's as good a guess that anyone could make as to where in orbit they are. No?
All I can think of is that maybe there are ground stations that the satellites use to find THEIR locations in orbit, kind of a GPS-locating that the orbiting satellites use... but I haven't really heard of any of that. Anyone know anything about this? Just curious.
Karma: NaN
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Not that impressive, especially the demo. Shows very little motion, lighting changes, discontinuities, etc... I wonder how they handle the scale problem with only one lense?