Magnetic positioning is an IPS (Indoor positioning system) solution that takes advantage of the magnetic field anomalies typical of indoor settings by using them as distinctive place recognition signatures. The first citation of positioning based on magnetic anomaly can be traced back to military applications in 1970. [1] The use of magnetic field anomalies for indoor positioning was first claimed in 1999, [2] with later publications related to robotics in the early 2000s. [3] [4]
Most recent applications can employ magnetic sensor data from a smartphone used to wirelessly locate objects or people inside a building. [5]
According to Opus Research magnetic positioning will emerge as a “foundational” indoor location technology. [6]
Independent research brought in 2011 a team of researchers to focus on anomalies to the geomagnetic field as a possible naturally available field to be used for localization of consumer electronic devices.
After some years of research and tests they were able to implement an indoor localization platform that, based on the fingerprinting of a building geomagnetic field and of advanced sensor fusion, was able to precisely locate a device and its user without any infrastructure. Moreover, the platform was also able to compensate most of known issues of local magnetic field variability.
In 2014 the team founded GiPStech [7] - as academic spin-off of Università della Calabria - to complete the R&D and commercialize the platform.
Professor Janne Haverinen and Anssi Kemppainen worked also on the magnetic approach. [8] Noticing that buildings' magnetic distortions were leading machines astray, they eventually turned the problem around and focused attention on the magnetic interferences caused by steel structures. What they found was that the disturbances inside them were consistent, creating a magnetic fingerprint unique to a building. [9]
Professor Janne Haverinen founded the company IndoorAtlas in 2012 to commercialize the magnetic positioning solution with dual headquarters in Mountain View, CA and Oulu, Finland. [10]
The local magnetic field is affected by moving metal objects like lifts or metal cabinets. [11]
A magnetic anomaly detector (MAD) is an instrument used to detect minute variations in the Earth's magnetic field. The term typically refers to magnetometers used by military forces to detect submarines. Military MAD equipment is a descendant of geomagnetic survey or aeromagnetic survey instruments used to search for minerals by detecting their disturbance of the normal earth-field.
The South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA) is an area where Earth's inner Van Allen radiation belt comes closest to Earth's surface, dipping down to an altitude of 200 kilometres (120 mi). This leads to an increased flux of energetic particles in this region and exposes orbiting satellites to higher-than-usual levels of ionizing radiation.
A magnetometer is a device that measures magnetic field or magnetic dipole moment. Different types of magnetometers measure the direction, strength, or relative change of a magnetic field at a particular location. A compass is one such device, one that measures the direction of an ambient magnetic field, in this case, the Earth's magnetic field. Other magnetometers measure the magnetic dipole moment of a magnetic material such as a ferromagnet, for example by recording the effect of this magnetic dipole on the induced current in a coil.
In navigation, dead reckoning is the process of calculating the current position of a moving object by using a previously determined position, or fix, and incorporating estimates of speed, heading, and elapsed time. The corresponding term in biology, to describe the processes by which animals update their estimates of position or heading, is path integration.
Earth's magnetic field, also known as the geomagnetic field, is the magnetic field that extends from Earth's interior out into space, where it interacts with the solar wind, a stream of charged particles emanating from the Sun. The magnetic field is generated by electric currents due to the motion of convection currents of a mixture of molten iron and nickel in Earth's outer core: these convection currents are caused by heat escaping from the core, a natural process called a geodynamo.
A geomagnetic storm, also known as a magnetic storm, is a temporary disturbance of the Earth's magnetosphere caused by a solar wind shock wave.
Robotic mapping is a discipline related to computer vision and cartography. The goal for an autonomous robot is to be able to construct a map or floor plan and to localize itself and its recharging bases or beacons in it. Robotic mapping is that branch which deals with the study and application of ability to localize itself in a map / plan and sometimes to construct the map or floor plan by the autonomous robot.
Simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) is the computational problem of constructing or updating a map of an unknown environment while simultaneously keeping track of an agent's location within it. While this initially appears to be a chicken or the egg problem, there are several algorithms known to solve it in, at least approximately, tractable time for certain environments. Popular approximate solution methods include the particle filter, extended Kalman filter, covariance intersection, and GraphSLAM. SLAM algorithms are based on concepts in computational geometry and computer vision, and are used in robot navigation, robotic mapping and odometry for virtual reality or augmented reality.
An automated guided vehicle (AGV), different from an autonomous mobile robot (AMR), is a portable robot that follows along marked long lines or wires on the floor, or uses radio waves, vision cameras, magnets, or lasers for navigation. They are most often used in industrial applications to transport heavy materials around a large industrial building, such as a factory or warehouse. Application of the automatic guided vehicle broadened during the late 20th century.
A positioning system is a system for determining the position of an object in space. Positioning system technologies exist ranging from interplanetary coverage with meter accuracy to workspace and laboratory coverage with sub-millimeter accuracy. A major subclass is made of geopositioning systems, used for determining an object's position with respect to Earth, i.e., its geographical position; one of the most well-known and commonly used geopositioning systems is the Global Positioning System (GPS) and similar global navigation satellite systems (GNSS).
An indoor positioning system (IPS) is a network of devices used to locate people or objects where GPS and other satellite technologies lack precision or fail entirely, such as inside multistory buildings, airports, alleys, parking garages, and underground locations.
In geophysics, a magnetic anomaly is a local variation in the Earth's magnetic field resulting from variations in the chemistry or magnetism of the rocks. Mapping of variation over an area is valuable in detecting structures obscured by overlying material. The magnetic variation in successive bands of ocean floor parallel with mid-ocean ridges was important evidence for seafloor spreading, a concept central to the theory of plate tectonics.
Robot localization denotes the robot's ability to establish its own position and orientation within the frame of reference. Path planning is effectively an extension of localization, in that it requires the determination of the robot's current position and a position of a goal location, both within the same frame of reference or coordinates. Map building can be in the shape of a metric map or any notation describing locations in the robot frame of reference.
Wi-Fi positioning system is a geolocation system that uses the characteristics of nearby Wi‑Fi access points to discover where a device is located.
The Vine–Matthews–Morley hypothesis, also known as the Morley–Vine–Matthews hypothesis, was the first key scientific test of the seafloor spreading theory of continental drift and plate tectonics. Its key impact was that it allowed the rates of plate motions at mid-ocean ridges to be computed. It states that the Earth's oceanic crust acts as a recorder of reversals in the geomagnetic field direction as seafloor spreading takes place.
The Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems (IRIS) is part of the ETH Zurich, Switzerland. It replaced the existing Institute of Robotics, of the ETH Zurich in October 2002, when Prof. Bradley J. Nelson moved from the University of Minnesota, United States, to ETH Zurich, and succeeded the Prof. Dr. Gerhard Schweitzer.
A cover meter is an instrument to locate rebars and measure the exact concrete cover. Rebar detectors are less sophisticated devices that can only locate metallic objects below the surface. Due to the cost-effective design, the pulse-induction method is one of the most commonly used solutions.
Robotic sensing is a subarea of robotics science intended to provide sensing capabilities to robots. Robotic sensing provides robots with the ability to sense their environments and is typically used as feedback to enable robots to adjust their behavior based on sensed input. Robot sensing includes the ability to see, touch, hear and move and associated algorithms to process and make use of environmental feedback and sensory data. Robot sensing is important in applications such as vehicular automation, robotic prosthetics, and for industrial, medical, entertainment and educational robots.
Air-Cobot (Aircraft Inspection enhanced by smaRt & Collaborative rOBOT) is a French research and development project of a wheeled collaborative mobile robot able to inspect aircraft during maintenance operations. This multi-partner project involves research laboratories and industry. Research around this prototype was developed in three domains: autonomous navigation, human-robot collaboration and nondestructive testing.
In virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), a pose tracking system detects the precise pose of head-mounted displays, controllers, other objects or body parts within Euclidean space. Pose tracking is often referred to as 6DOF tracking, for the six degrees of freedom in which the pose is often tracked.
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