I-Corps: Customer Discovery for Field-Deployable Indoor Localization Technology

该项目的技术重点是为GPS不可见的环境设计的可穿戴式地理定位设备。有很多机会，特别是在灾难应对、安全监控、探索和医疗保健领域，在这些领域，一个强大的、可现场部署的室内定位系统不仅将服务于其主要目的，而且还将成为一项使能技术，用于各种其他应用。总的来说，现有的本地化技术仅限于在已知的、已映射的环境中部署，例如工厂、仓库和医院，在这些环境中，高成本和设置时间是合理的。然而，需要一种满足以下设计要求的室内地理定位系统：室内定位精度1米，在所有环境中的功能，仅限于任务期间现场存在的设备，针对结构变化的可靠操作，具有成本效益，并且在大小、重量和功率范围内。该项目可以在广泛的应用领域产生影响，例如：跟踪阿尔茨海默氏症患者和建筑物/设施中的医务人员，帮助家中的老年人培养独立生活能力，以及在战斗、维持和平行动或国土支助期间跟踪军事人员。这一i-Corps项目还可以提高人道主义援助和救灾中第一反应小组的安全和效率。该团队的多模式、可穿戴、定位设备专为GPS不可用的环境而设计，基于依赖惯性和视觉传感器的感知和信息融合方法。该技术旨在通过融合里程计数据和来自可穿戴系统的基于可视化的定位信息来提高恶劣环境下的三维室内定位精度。这种无处不在的地理定位技术旨在实现以下资格：人体姿势和步态的检测和识别；包括惯性和视觉系统的多模式室内定位；以及无GPS定位算法，包括估计方法和视觉同步定位和地图绘制。通过利用在i-Corps课程期间从客户发现过程中获得的知识，该团队将生成成功部署此类系统所需的硬件(机械、控制、通信)和软件(算法、数据处理、传感器融合、用户界面)的工程要求。

The focus of this project's technology is on wearable geo-location devices designed for environments where GPS is not viable.There are many opportunities, especially in disaster response, security monitoring, exploration, and healthcare, where a robust, field deployable, indoor localization system will not only serve its primary purpose but also be an enabling technology for a variety of other applications. By and large, existing localization technologies are limited to deployment in known, already mapped, environments such as factories, warehouses, and hospitals where the high cost and setup time is justified. However, there is a need for an indoor geolocation system that will meet the following design requirements: an indoor location accuracy of 1 meter, functionality in all environments, restricted to equipment existing on site during missions, reliable operation against structural changes, cost-effective, and within size, weight, and power ranges. This project may enable impacts across a broad range of application areas such as: tracking of Alzheimer's patients and medical personnel in buildings/facilities, assisting elderly in their homes to foster independent living and tracking of military personnel during combat, peace keeping operations or homeland support. This I-Corps project could also enhance the safety and efficiency of first responder teams in humanitarian aid and disaster relief. This team's multi-modal, wearable, localization device designed for GPS-denied environments is based on perception and information fusion methods that rely on both inertial and visual sensors. The technology intends to enhance the three-dimensional indoor localization accuracy in harsh environments by fusing odometry data with visualization-based localization information from a wearable system. This "everywhere geolocation" technology is designed to achieve the following qualifications: human pose and gait detection and identification; multi-modal indoor localization including inertial and visual systems; and GPS-less localization algorithms including estimation methods and visual simultaneous localization and mapping. By utilizing the knowledge gained as a result of the customer discovery process during the I-Corps curriculum, this team will generate the engineering requirements for the hardware (mechanical, control, communications), and software (algorithm, data processing, sensor fusion, user interface) needed to successfully deploy such a system.