Sensor Fusion Navigation Resolving Erroneous Movement Signals
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing indoor navigation systems are inadequate for providing accurate and reliable directions within indoor environments, particularly for unfamiliar areas like malls or office buildings, and often lack features to assist visually impaired users.
Innovation Solution
A user device equipped with multiple sensors, including a camera and other sensors like accelerometers and gyroscopes, synchronizes data to determine movement and feature points, using a priority scheme to resolve discrepancies and provide navigation instructions through audible, haptic, or visual feedback, even in the absence of wireless access points or beacons.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If multiple sensors are used for navigation, then measurement precision is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines data from multiple sensors (camera, accelerometer, gyroscope) into a unified navigation system. The sensor fusion algorithm merges visual data with motion sensor data to achieve centimeter-level navigation accuracy while managing the complexity through integrated processing.
Solution Approach 2:
The navigation system is designed to work with multiple types of sensors simultaneously, making the system multi-functional. The same processing framework handles data from cameras, accelerometers, and gyroscopes, allowing the system to adapt to different sensor configurations and environments.
2Reliability
If sensor data synchronization is implemented, then reliability is improved, but processing time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary synchronization of sensor data streams before main processing. Timestamps are assigned and data is pre-aligned in time, ensuring that when the main navigation algorithms run, the data is already synchronized and ready for immediate processing, reducing overall latency.
Solution Approach 2:
The system continuously monitors and adjusts synchronization based on feedback from timestamp comparisons. When drift is detected between sensor data streams, the system dynamically adjusts timing offsets to maintain alignment, ensuring ongoing reliability without excessive processing overhead.
3Adaptability or versatility
If indoor maps are created dynamically, then adaptability is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The navigation system automatically creates and updates maps without requiring manual intervention or pre-existing detailed maps. The device itself performs the mapping function by processing sensor data and generating spatial representations of the environment, enabling operation in previously unmapped locations.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary environmental scanning and feature detection before full navigation begins. By pre-processing the environment to identify key landmarks and spatial relationships, the system reduces the complexity of real-time map creation during active navigation.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for resolving erroneous movement signals and for providing navigation instructions. One of the methods includes receiving data from two or more sensors, synchronizing the received data, determining a first subset of the synchronized data from the camera for a particular period of time and a second subset of the synchronized data from the other sensor for the particular period of time, comparing the first subset with the second subset to determine whether the first subset and the second subset indicate an erroneous movement signal, based on determining that the first subset and the second subset indicate an erroneous movement signal, selecting data for one of the sensors based on a sensor priority scheme for the sensors, and resolving the erroneous movement signal based on the selected data for the one of the sensors.