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."

Re:Your cellphone is in a drawer...

[raddan]

I, too, wonder about the usefulness of the camera. There's also the issue of power, which on mobile devices is a major issue. You might be willing to spend power if spatial precision is why the device exists, but I suspect that most people have other uses for their cellphones.

That said, there are other useful sensors on the phone, namely the accelerometer, the microphone, the wi-fi antenna, and in some cases, a magnetometer. These folks [mit.edu] used those sensors, especially the accelerometer which has a negligible effect on battery life, in combination with a hidden Markov model in order to accurately predict a person's position. Not sub-centimeter, but good enough for regular people. Of course, the model had intimate knowledge of the surrounding area and transit schedules, but it's a neat idea. I especially liked the idea of using a DFT to differentiate between walking and riding the bus.

Anyway, point is: a coat pocket may not be an obstacle. Don't forget that modern phones have a surprising amount of processing power and memory.