IP Library Granted Patent US 11,568,562
Granted Patent B1
US 11,568,562 · App. 16/994,329 · Granted Jan 31, 2023

Self-tracked controller

Inventor: Samuel Redmond D'Amico (San Francisco, CA)
Assignee: Meta Platforms Technologies, LLC
G06T7/73G06T7/97H04N5/2253H04N13/239G06F3/011G06T2207/30244
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Quick Facts
Patent No.
US 11,568,562
App. No.
16/994,329
Granted
Jan 31, 2023
Kind
B1
Abstract

The disclosed system may include a housing dimensioned to secure various components including at least one physical processor and various sensors. The system may also include a camera mounted to the housing, as well as physical memory with computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the physical processor, cause the physical processor to: acquire images of a surrounding environment using the camera mounted to the housing, identify features of the surrounding environment from the acquired images, generate a map using the features identified from the acquired images, access sensor data generated by the sensors, and determine a current pose of the system in the surrounding environment based on the features in the generated map and the accessed sensor data. Various other methods, apparatuses, and computer-readable media are also disclosed.

Claims (47)

1. A system comprising:

a housing dimensioned to secure one or more components including at least one physical processor, one or more sensors, and a plurality of cameras; and

physical memory comprising computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the at least one physical processor, cause the at least one physical processor to:

acquire a plurality of images of a surrounding environment using the plurality of cameras mounted to the housing;

identify one or more features of the surrounding environment from the acquired plurality of images;

generate a map using the one or more features identified from the acquired plurality of images;

access sensor data generated by the one or more sensors;

determine a current pose of the system in the surrounding environment based on the one or more features in the generated map and the accessed sensor data; and

upon determining the current pose of the system, transitioning to a single camera of the plurality of cameras, wherein subsequent images taken by the single camera are used to update the pose of the system in the surrounding environment.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the physical processor further implements one or more computer vision algorithms to identify the features in the acquired images.

3. The system of claim 2 , wherein the physical processor triangulates the position of the system using one or more of the identified features in the acquired images.

4. The system of claim 2 , wherein determining the current pose of the system in the surrounding environment based on the features in the generated map and the accessed sensor data is performed without line of sight between the system and an HMD of an artificial-reality system.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the system includes at least two cameras and wherein the physical processor implements the one or more images captured by the at least two cameras as part of a two-camera baseline to identify a three-dimensional (3D) position of a specified feature of the surrounding environment.

6. The system of claim 1 , wherein the physical processor is configured to continually identify new features of the surrounding environment from the acquired images and add those new features to the generated map.

7. The system of claim 6 , wherein the physical processor determines the current pose of the system in the surrounding environment based on the newly identified features in the generated map.

8. The system of claim 1 , further comprising a head-mounted display (HMD) of an artificial-reality system.

9. The system of claim 8 , wherein the physical processor is configured to:

determine whether one or more conditions exist that would cause the system to consult portions of an alternative map of the surrounding environment; and

upon determining that at least one of the one or more conditions exist, accessing at least a portion of the alternative map of the surrounding environment.

10. The system of claim 9 , wherein the alternative map of the surrounding environment is generated by the artificial-reality system.

11. The system of claim 8 , wherein the physical processor is configured to:

determine whether one or more conditions exist that would cause the system to combine portions of an alternative map of the surrounding environment with the generated map; and

upon determining that at least one of the one or more conditions exist, combining one or more portions of the alternative map with the generated map.

12. The system of claim 11 , wherein the physical processor determines the current pose of the system in the surrounding environment based on the features in the combined map and the accessed sensor data.

13. An electronic device comprising:

a housing dimensioned to secure one or more components including at least one physical processor and one or more sensors;

at least one camera mounted to the housing; and

physical memory comprising computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the at least one physical processor, cause the at least one physical processor to:

acquire one or more images of a surrounding environment using the at least one camera mounted to the housing;

identify one or more features of the surrounding environment from the acquired one or more images;

generate a map using the one or more features identified from the acquired one or more images;

access sensor data generated by the one or more sensors;

determine a current pose of the electronic device in the surrounding environment based on the one or more features in the generated map and the accessed sensor data; and

upon determining the current pose of the system, transition to a single camera of the plurality of cameras, wherein subsequent images taken by the single camera are used to update the pose of the system in the surrounding environment.

14. The electronic device of claim 13 , wherein the apparatus comprises a handheld electronic device controller.

15. The electronic device of claim 13 , wherein the physical processor distributes at least a portion of computing tasks related to identifying the one or more features of the surrounding environment from the acquired images to one or more external computer systems.

16. The electronic device of claim 13 , further comprising a communications module including a wireless transceiver, and wherein the physical processor implements the communications module to communicate with a peripheral device.

17. The electronic device of claim 16 , wherein the apparatus and the peripheral device exchange image data, and wherein the physical processor updates the generated map using image data received from the peripheral device.

18. The electronic device of claim 17 , wherein the image data received from the peripheral device is used by the physical processor to determine an updated pose of the apparatus upon the apparatus losing its position within the surrounding environment.

19. The electronic device of claim 13 , wherein the physical processor is further configured to identify at least one of the features of the surrounding environment as being private and obfuscating those features within the generated map.

20. A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising one or more computer-executable instructions that, when executed by at least one processor of a computing device, cause the computing device to:

acquire one or more images of a surrounding environment using a camera mounted to a housing;

identify one or more features of the surrounding environment from the acquired one or more images;

generate a map using the one or more features identified from the acquired one or more images;

access sensor data generated by one or more sensors;

determine a current pose of the housing in the surrounding environment based on the one or more features in the generated map and the accessed sensor data; and

upon determining the current pose of the system, transition to a single camera of the plurality of cameras, wherein subsequent images taken by the single camera are used to update the pose of the system in the surrounding environment.

Assignments (2)
CHANGE OF NAME Recorded May 27, 2022
From: FACEBOOK TECHNOLOGIES, LLC
To: META PLATFORMS TECHNOLOGIES, LLC
Reel/Frame 060203/0228 →
ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST Recorded Nov 4, 2020
From: D'AMICO, SAMUEL REDMOND
To: FACEBOOK TECHNOLOGIES, LLC
Reel/Frame 054276/0128 →