CODED MARKER NAVIGATION SYSTEM AND METHOD

• US 20120197519A1
• Filed: 01/31/2011
• Published: 08/02/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 01/31/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Raytheon Company (Rtx Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Raytheon Company (Rtx Corporation)
• Inventors: Richardson, James Joseph
• Granted Patent: US 8,862,395 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 701/408
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/20 Instruments for performing navigational calculations G01C21/24, G01C21/26 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3647 Guidance involving output of stored or live camera images or video streams

Abstract

A navigation system and method for determining a location of a navigator in a navigation environment using coded markers located within the navigation environment. In one example, the navigation system includes a camera apparatus configured to obtain an image of a scene containing images of at least one coded marker in a navigation environment, video analytics configured to read the at least one coded marker, and a processor coupled to the video analytics and configured to determine a position fix of a navigator based on a known location of the at least one coded marker.

Claims

1. A method of determining a location of a navigator, the method comprising:

obtaining an image of a scene including at least one coded marker;

reading the at least one coded marker in the image; and

determining a position fix on the location of the navigator based on a known location of the at least one coded marker.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein reading the at least one coded marker in the image further comprises:

extracting an image of one of the at least one coded marker from the image of the scene;

decoding the image of one of the at least one coded marker into a database value; and

accessing a database to retrieve the known location of one of the at least one coded marker based on the database value.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein reading the at least one coded marker in the image further comprises:

extracting an image of one of the at least one coded marker from the image of the scene; and

decoding the image of one of the at least one coded marker into the known location of the at least one coded marker.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining a position fix on the location of the navigator further comprises:

determining a relative azimuth offset between the navigator and the at least one coded marker in the image of the scene; and

geometrically calculating the position fix on the navigator from the relative azimuth offset.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining a position fix on the location of the navigator further comprises determining a distance from the navigator to the coded marker by determining dimensions of the at least one coded marker in the image of the scene.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein obtaining the image comprises obtaining a plurality of images of the scene at different times as the navigator moves;

and

wherein determining a position fix on the location of the navigator further comprises;

determining a corresponding plurality of relative azimuth offsets between the navigator and the at least one coded marker from the plurality of images of the scene; and

determining a distance from the navigator to the at least one coded marker based on the plurality of relative azimuth offsets to the marker.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising correlating the position fix on the location of the navigator to map data.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein obtaining an image of a scene further comprises obtaining the image using a 360 degree camera.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein determining a position fix on the location of the navigator further comprises:

obtaining location information of the navigator using a GPS unit; and

in a GPS denied environment, supplementing the location information from the GPS unit with the position fix obtained from at least one coded marker.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein determining a position fix on the location of the navigator further comprises:

determining a plurality of position fixes; and

performing dead reckoning computations between the plurality of position fixes to provide for continuous location of the navigator.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein performing the dead reckoning computations between the plurality of position fixes comprises:

monitoring speed of the navigator;

determining a heading of the navigator; and

extrapolating the location of the navigator based on one of the plurality of position fixes, the speed of the vehicle and the heading.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein obtaining an image of a scene including at least one coded marker further comprises obtaining the image of the scene including at least one barcode.

13. A navigation system comprising:

a camera apparatus configured to obtain an image of a scene containing images of at least one coded marker in a navigation environment;

video analytics configured to read the at least one coded marker; and

a processor coupled to the video analytics and configured to determine a position fix of a navigator based on a known location of the at least one coded marker.

14. The navigation system of claim 13, further comprising a database comprising:

at least one known location of the at least one coded marker; and

at least one database value correlated to the at least one known location of the at least one coded marker,

wherein video analytics is further configured to extract the image of the at least one coded marker from the image of the scene and to translate the image of one of the at least one coded marker into the at least one database value.

15. The navigation system of claim 13, wherein the processor is further configured to determine the position fix on the location of the navigator by determining a relative azimuth offset between the navigator and the at least one coded marker in the image of the scene and geometrically determining the position fix on the navigator from the relative azimuth offset.

16. The navigation system of claim 13, wherein the processor is further configured to determine the position fix on the location of the navigator by determining a distance of the navigator to one of the at least one coded marker.

17. The navigation system of claim 13, further comprising:

a map database, wherein the processor is configured to relate the position fix of the navigator to the map database; and

a display configured to display a visual representation of the map database and to place the position fix of the navigator in the visual representation.

18. The navigation system of claim 13, wherein the system further comprises a GPS unit configured to obtain location information of the navigator, wherein the processor is configured to supplement the location information of the navigator obtained from the GPS unit with a position fix based on the known location of the at least one coded marker.

19. The navigation system of claim 13, wherein the processor is further configured to obtain a plurality of position fixes based on the known location of the at least one coded marker and to perform dead reckoning computations in-between the plurality of position fixes to provide for continuous location of the navigator.

20. The navigation system of claim 13, wherein the at least one coded marker comprises at least one barcode.

21. The navigation system of claim 13, wherein the camera apparatus comprises a 360 degree camera.