Infrastructure-free RF tracking in dynamic indoor environments

#This disclosure relates generally to tracking mobile entities indoors. More particularly, it pertains to RF tracking of mobile entities in an infrastructure-free, dynamic indoor environment.

#As is known, promising solutions exist today that can accurately track mobile entities indoors using visual inertial odometry in favorable visual conditions, or by leveraging fine-grained ranging (RF, ultrasonic, IR, etc.) to reference anchors. However, such solutions are unable to effectively operate in “dynamic” indoor environments (e.g. first responder scenarios, multi-player AR/VR gaming in everyday spaces, etc.) that are devoid of such favorable conditions or reference anchors.

#The above problem is solved and an advance in the art is made according to aspects of the present disclosure directed to systems, methods, and structures that provide the locating/tracking of mobile entities in a dynamic indoor environment without infrastructure support or—as noted above—favorable visual conditions.

#A more complete understanding of the present disclosure may be realized by reference to the accompanying drawing in which:

#FIG. 1(A) is a schematic diagram showing an illustrative, simple experiment to demonstrate persistent localization errors in a VIO-based system;

#FIG. 1(B) is a plot showing localization error for various lighting conditions for the experiment using a VIO-based system;

#The illustrative embodiments are described more fully by the Figures and detailed description. Embodiments according to this disclosure may, however, be embodied in various forms and are not limited to specific or illustrative embodiments described in the drawing and detailed description.

#The following merely illustrates the principles of the disclosure. It will thus be appreciated that those skilled in the art will be able to devise various arrangements which, although not explicitly described or shown herein, embody the principles of the disclosure and are included within its spirit and scope.

#Furthermore, all examples and conditional language recited herein are intended to be only for pedagogical purposes to aid the reader in understanding the principles of the disclosure and the concepts contributed by the inventor(s) to furthering the art and are to be construed as being without limitation to such specifically recited examples and conditions.