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From: ssingh@frc2.frc.ri.cmu.edu (Sanjiv Singh)
Subject: Re: Indoor position, was Re: GPS Accuracy?
In-Reply-To: sburton@dres.dnd.ca's message of Tue, 24 Aug 1993 18:40:06 GMT
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>Do you or anyone else know of any indoor positioning systems with accuracy
>to 1 cm within an square with 10 m sides.  Three dimensional would be
>nice.

This is certainly doable.  The question is how much money you want to
spend vs. how much work you want to do yourself.

At AAAI this year, I saw a positioning system (uses beacons) made by a
company called Mcleod Technologies.  Here are some specs from their brochure:

	Update speed: 20 hz
	position accuracy:  +/-0.05inches (1.27 mm)
	direction accuracy: +/- 0.05 degrees

	3 D reference points cover 1 acre
	1D, 2D or 3D feedback
	
They claim to be able to get this kind of accuracy even while the
robot is moving at several meters/sec.

The performance specs look a little too good to be true; I especially
don't understand how they could get 3D position using a single axis
rotating sensor, but it I must say that their demo looked pretty good.

Its not cheap though, partly because they are selling full systems and
not just the positioning.  I believe their rep told me that they would
sell the positioning part for about $5K.




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Sanjiv Singh                                    ssingh@ri.cmu.edu
Field Robotics Center                           (412) 268-5895
Carnegie Mellon University
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