Navigation using self-describing fiducials

1. A self-describing fiducial comprising:

a communication element that is configured to optically communicate navigation state estimation aiding information to one or more navigating objects in the vicinity of the self-describing fiducial for state estimation;

wherein the navigation-aiding information comprises a geographic position of the self-describing fiducial with respect to one or more coordinate systems.

2. The self-describing fiducial of claim 1 , wherein the communication element comprises a barcode.

3. The self-describing fiducial of claim 1 , wherein the communication element comprises a dynamic barcode communicating time varying data.

4. The self-describing fiducial of claim 1 , wherein the communication element comprises a barcode visible through a 360 degree angle.

5. The self-describing fiducial of claim 1 , wherein the communication element comprises a light emitting source and wherein the navigation-aiding information is optically communicated by modulation of the light emitted by the light emitting source.

6. The self-describing fiducial of claim 5 , wherein light from the light emitting source comprises at least one of: nonvisible light and polarized light.

7. The self-describing fiducial of claim 1 , wherein the navigation aiding information comprises covariance information associated with the position of the self-describing fiducial.

8. The self-describing fiducial of claim 1 , wherein the self-describing fiducial comprises:

a power source; and

an encoder;

wherein the communication element comprises an optical transmitter, wherein the power source provides power to the encoder, and the encoder encodes a location of the self-describing fiducial to produce an encoded location and the optical transmitter optically broadcasts the encoded location.

9. The self-describing fiducial of claim 1 , wherein the communication element further communicates navigation aiding information comprising at least one of: traffic volume levels, flight corridor heights, lateral location, speed restrictions, weather information, no fly zones, traffic patterns, or an all-stop signal.

10. The self-describing fiducial of claim 1 , wherein the self-describing fiducial is on a navigating object and wherein the self-describing fiducial transmits navigation parameters of the navigating object.

11. The self-describing fiducial of claim 1 , wherein the power source comprises a solar panel and the communication element comprises at least one light emitting diode.

12. The self-describing fiducial of claim 1 , wherein the communication element optically transmits a pointer to a matrix stored in the navigating device, the matrix comprising location information for the self-describing fiducial.

13. The self-describing fiducial of claim 1 , wherein the matrix stored on the navigating device is updated to improve accuracy of the location information.

14. A system of self-describing fiducials comprising a plurality of self-describing fiducials, each self-describing fiducial optically communicating its location and position covariance information related to its location.

15. The system of claim 14 , further comprising a navigating object having a clear line of sight to a portion of the self-describing fiducials, wherein the self-describing fiducials are physically distributed such that the navigating object uniquely calculates its position from a single observation.

16. The system of claim 14 , wherein the plurality of self-describing fiducials self-initialize by estimating at least one of: relative position to other surrounding self-describing fiducials and a location of the self-describing fiducial with respect to at least one coordinate system.

17. A method for navigating comprising:

taking an image with a camera mounted on a navigating object;

identifying a self-describing fiducial within the image;

acquiring an optically communicated geographic position of the self-describing fiducial; and

processing the optically communicated location to estimate at least one navigational state of the navigating object.

18. The method of claim 17 , wherein acquiring an optically communicated location of the self-describing fiducial comprises analyzing an image of the self-describing fiducial, wherein the self-describing fiducial comprises a barcode.

19. The method of claim 17 , further comprising calculating an angle of the self-describing fiducial by calculating a location of an image of the self-describing fiducial on a focal plane of the camera.

20. The method of claim 17 , wherein processing the optically communicated location comprises inputting the optically communicated location into a navigation filter.