Beacon Position Monitoring Using Modulated Light Signatures
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing systems for monitoring the position of objects, such as buildings, face challenges in bright ambient light environments and fail to accurately identify beacons due to spurious light interference, leading to noisy measurements and the possibility of detecting false positives, especially when the objects experience slow movement due to ground conditions or earthquakes.
Innovation Solution
The system employs beacons that communicate through modulated light intensity and wavelength, using image sensors and processing units to identify unique light signatures, and can be equipped with autonomous energy sources and communication units, allowing for remote control and forming a MESH network to track movement and orientation of objects.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If traditional imaging systems are used in bright ambient light environments, then the system can operate in various lighting conditions, but spurious light interference causes noisy measurements and false positives
Solution Approach 1:
The beacon emits light in periodic pulses at a specific duty cycle rather than continuous illumination. The imaging device synchronizes its exposure timing with these periodic pulses, capturing images only during the beacon's active emission periods. This temporal synchronization allows the system to operate in bright ambient light environments while maintaining measurement precision, as the periodic pulsed signal stands out against the continuous ambient background light.
Solution Approach 2:
The beacon emits light at specific wavelengths or color combinations that are distinctive and programmable. The imaging device uses color filtering and wavelength-specific detection to isolate the beacon's light signature from ambient light. By assigning unique color codes or wavelength patterns to different beacons, the system can accurately identify and track specific beacons even in environments with varying ambient light conditions, suppressing spurious light interference through spectral discrimination.
2Reliability
If beacons emit continuous light for identification, then beacon detection is reliable, but energy consumption increases and ambient light interference worsens
Solution Approach 1:
The beacon switches from continuous light emission to periodic pulsed emission with a controlled duty cycle. During each pulse period, the beacon emits light at full intensity for a brief duration, then remains off for the remainder of the period. This periodic operation maintains reliable beacon detection through temporal synchronization with the imaging device while dramatically reducing average power consumption compared to continuous emission.
Solution Approach 2:
The imaging device is pre-configured with knowledge of the beacon's pulsed emission timing and characteristics. Before capturing images, the system synchronizes its exposure timing to coincide with the beacon's active emission windows. This preliminary synchronization ensures that the imaging device is ready to detect the beacon signal precisely when it is emitted, maintaining detection reliability without requiring continuous beacon illumination.
3Measurement precision
If multiple beacons are used to improve position calculation accuracy, then position determination becomes more accurate, but the complexity of identifying and differentiating individual beacons increases
Solution Approach 1:
Each beacon is assigned a unique color code or wavelength signature that can be programmably configured. The imaging device captures the spectral characteristics of detected light sources and compares them against known beacon signatures. This color-based identification method allows the system to simultaneously track multiple beacons without confusion, as each beacon's distinctive spectral fingerprint enables reliable differentiation even when multiple beacons are visible in the same field of view.
Solution Approach 2:
Different beacons can be configured with distinct pulsed emission patterns, timing sequences, or duty cycles. The imaging device detects these temporal patterns and uses them to identify and differentiate between multiple beacons. By encoding beacon identities in the temporal domain through unique pulsing characteristics, the system can accurately track multiple beacons simultaneously while simplifying identification through pattern recognition rather than complex spectral analysis.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This approach enables accurate tracking of object movement and orientation in bright environments by suppressing spurious light interference and providing precise positional data, even in conditions where traditional systems fail, such as on soft ground or during earthquakes.
Implementation Method 1
a light source arranged to generate a number of light beams (5(i))
Implementation Method 2
an image sensor arranged to sense the light beams (5(i)) from the beacons (1(i)) and to create image data
Data Source
AI summary
An apparatus monitors positions on an external object having at least one beacon (1(i), i=1, 2, . . . , I) attached to it. The apparatus has an image sensor (11), a lens system (13) and a processing unit (9). The lens system (13) receives at least one light beam (5(i)) transmitted from the at least one beacon (1(i)) and transfer the at least one light beam (5(i)) to the image sensor (11). The image sensor (11) forms image data. The processing unit (9) identifies the at least one beacon (1(i)) within the image data based on the at least one light beam (5(i)), determines current location data of the at least one beacon (1(i)) based on the image data, compares the current location data with former location data of the one or more beacons (1(i)) as stored in a memory (15) and determines whether the object has moved relative to a fixed reference frame based on the comparison.