Positional Tracking for vast open spaces?

"HAWKEYE481" wrote:
Something's shouting out at me that drones could well be used to gain the positional tracking needed?

In order to use a drone as a platform for position tracking you would first need to track the position of the drone, so it could possibly increase coverage, but it wouldn't be making anything easier. And you would be working with a whole new set of aviation problems such as payload limits airflow, wind, fuel capacity. Also aviation authorities in the USA have been harassing commercial drone operators even when they work fully within the regulation for remote control aircraft.

That video is impressive! I didn't hear him mention the range? Or if more than one device could be tracked simultaneously, the drone idea ATM is literally just that! I was thinking of 3 mini drones with a battery life of say 10 hrs however it probably would complicate the matter the Radio waves seem good I'm going to look into this deeper! Thanks for responding :)

"mrmonkeybat" wrote:

But the like the QR codes the LED dots on the hard hat are of known dimensions so as long as one camera keep track of you the angle, orientation and distance to the camera can be calculated.

I should correct myself here, even with a zoom lens the depth data from a single camera as triangulating from width of the head at distance small angles lead to larger movements. So two cameras would be needed for that method at range.

A laser would of course give very good depth data from allowing full position tracking from a single tripod. But I would expect difficulties when adapting surveyor instruments as they where not designed for tracking moving targets.

Just saw this video on another thread. Radio based positional tracking I am very impressed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYyFUQbWC1E

I was thinking more along the lines of 2-3 tripods to track the user/device

Differential GPS tops out at 10cm at 1Hz.


CCTV might do it in cities.


I'm not sure if 1cm is enough to correct accelerometer drift. If it is, then that pCell tech mentioned in the General forum could purportedly do it.


No idea why you can't median & average a dozen or so accelerometers! It seems like the clear winner to me. Anyone who could clue me in to any reason for why this is wrong?

"ganzuul" wrote:
Differential GPS tops out at 10cm at 1Hz.


CCTV might do it in cities.


I'm not sure if 1cm is enough to correct accelerometer drift. If it is, then that pCell tech mentioned in the General forum could purportedly do it.


No idea why you can't median & average a dozen or so accelerometers! It seems like the clear winner to me. Anyone who could clue me in to any reason for why this is wrong?

Thanks for the heads up on this, this is really interesting and may at present be the best way forward as you can have multiple users all at once which is exactly what this system needs. I've just messaged Steve from what I've researched so far this could be the one! :D

Combined/hybrid set of https://soloshot.com/ and Sixence Stem with base located on user... plus some hacking.
Soloshot will give location tracking while Stem will provide skeletal tracking.

Cheers JonnyX

Looks interesting and the range looks adequate. I had a message from Steve about the pcell technology he advised that's it's not for positional tracking however he did say they will be working on other future products! So it might be a no go for the minute, however it could still serve a purpose in delivering data to multiple devices simultaneously, I'm curious to know with this camera how I could still project the augmented image from the headset? Also if the tracking of the user would be precise enough I'll draw a really rough diagram of how I perceive the flow of data would work maybe people could elaborate if I'm correct or if it's possible?

If many props or other obstacles involved it could create problems for IR motion capture.
Perfect solution would custom Sixence STEM with multiple base units and single STEM setup. where STEM bases would be parallel paired but located in a grid just far enough from each other to avoid interference in order to pick up STEM transmitter signal in vast area....Im sure software side would make it possible to to calculate a "location" of target in this grid.
Or something like http://smartbody.ict.usc.edu/video combined with ceiling mounted grid of cameras where computer would detect motion to switch cameras in order to capture locomotion.
Regards.

"JohnyX" wrote:
If many props or other obstacles involved it could create problems for IR motion capture.
Perfect solution would custom Sixence STEM with multiple base units and single STEM setup. where STEM bases would be parallel paired but located in a grid just far enough from each other to avoid interference in order to pick up STEM transmitter signal in vast area....Im sure software side would make it possible to to calculate a "location" of target in this grid.
Or something like http://smartbody.ict.usc.edu/video combined with ceiling mounted grid of cameras where computer would detect motion to switch cameras in order to capture locomotion.
Regards.

Ceiling mounted grid of cameras may be a problem outside but another way this could be achieved would be to have tripods that extend higher enough to read/pick up data from above with the cameras attached?
I was seriously thinking of drones but it really wouldn't be feasible with the elements of the outdoors to face however if the conditions were right they could potentially follow the user, it's a bit out there this idea but it would save having to move tripods etc around!

The other thing is to make it practical the amount of stations or moveable tripods etc needs to be kept as low as possible.

Do you think the way I explained the point reference having to be picked up first and synced with the software data is the right way forward?