Method and apparatus for indoor positioning
A positioning unit mountable on a moving object includes at least one light source measuring unit and a processor. The light source measuring units have high directional sensitivity along a first axis and low directional sensitivity along a second axis orthogonal to the first axis to capture relative angular information of the moving object with respect to a plurality of stationary light sources in a space. The processor determines positioning information of the moving object at least from the output of the at least one light source measuring unit. Each light source measuring unit includes an optical arrangement and a linearly configured imaging sensor to receive light from the stationary light sources through the optical arrangement.
1. A positioning unit mountable on a moving object, the unit comprising:
at least one light source measuring unit having high directional sensitivity along a first axis and low directional sensitivity along a second axis orthogonal to said first axis to capture relative angular information of said moving object with respect to a plurality of stationary light sources in a space; and
a processor to determine positioning information of said moving object at least from the output of said at least one light source measuring unit,
wherein each said light source measuring unit comprises:
an optical arrangement; and
a linearly configured imaging sensor to receive light from said stationary light sources through said optical arrangement,
wherein said imaging sensor comprises a two-dimensional image sensor and a single row readout unit, and said optical arrangement comprises a lenticular lens array to optically compress said scene in one of said two dimensions.
2. The unit of claim 1 , wherein said moving object is a human head, said unit is implemented on a headset and said processor to determine at least one axis of orientation of said headset.
3. The unit of claim 1 , said unit implemented on a headset and said processor to determine position of said headset.
4. The unit of claim 1 and also comprising at least one of: an accelerometer, a gyroscope, and a magnetometer providing input into said processor.
5. The unit of claim 1 wherein said processor comprises means to output said positioning information to a simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) unit.
6. The unit of claim 1 wherein said stationary light sources comprises at least one of: a light bulb, daylight through a window, a lamp, an LED and an infra-red light source.
7. The unit of claim 1 wherein said optical arrangement has said high directional sensitivity along a first axis and low directional sensitivity along a second axis orthogonal to said first axis.
8. The unit of claim 1 wherein said moving object is one of: a robot, a drone, a toy and a vehicle.
9. The unit according to claim 1 and wherein said imaging sensor has low sensitivity to received light.
10. The unit according to claim 9 , said processor to track bright spots along rows being read out on said imaging sensor related to said stationary light sources.
11. The unit according to claim 9 , said processor to track peaks in output of said imaging sensor related to vertical features in said space.
12. The unit of claim 1 wherein said processor comprises:
a determiner to determine that at least two spatially separated pixels on said sensor are receiving light from at least two bright light sources; and
a disambiguator to disambiguate said at least two pixels in at least one sensor direction, said disambiguator comprising:
a correlator to determine correlations among said light receiving pixels of said sensors; and
a selector to use said correlations to determine which pixels are receiving light from the same bright light source.
13. A positioning unit mountable on a moving object, the unit comprising:
at least one light source measuring unit to capture relative angular information of said moving object with respect to a plurality of stationary light sources; and
a processor to determine positioning information of said moving object at least from the output of said at least one light source measuring unit,
wherein each said light source measuring unit comprises:
an optical arrangement producing multiple, overlapped versions of a scene, said optical arrangement comprising means for compressing spatial data via superposition; and
an imaging sensor to receive light from said stationary light sources through said optical arrangement.
14. The unit of claim 13 wherein said optical arrangement is a matrix of apertures.
15. The unit of claim 14 wherein said means are sensitive to small motions of each said measuring unit.
16. The unit of claim 14 wherein said imaging sensor is configured to generate a sparse array of active pixels at a time.