Indoor Positioning

with Visual SLAM Systems

What is visual positioning?

Visual positioning is finding out your live position by means of a moving camera which recognizes its real-time location in an environment.

It is commonly used for indoor positioning applications in large spaces that depend on a high reliability and precision of position data to work properly. The camera is mounted on the rolling equipment which position you want to track.

visual positioning in manufacturing examples

Visual positioning in a nutshell

Visual positioning is finding out your real-time position and orientation by means of a moving camera. It’s usually used in large areas such as warehouses, production halls, supermarkets, airports or large public spaces :

  • It works by mounting a camera on the vehicle you want to track.
  • The camera initially learns your environment’s landmarks on the fly and builds a map.
  • It will offer you the position and orientation in 3D of the tracked vehicle in your map.
  • Which is then used for locating goods, locating vehicles and data analytics.
camera of a tracking unit

The camera of a tracking unit. Each tracking unit consists of a camera connected to a small onboard computer.

3 steps to setup a visual positioning system

Accuracy

  • mm-range relative accuracy
  • 5cm to 30cm absolute accuracy
  • position + orientation

Affordability

  • no beacon or anchor costs
  • from single to multi camera
  • on-board data processing

Visual Positioning Software

We created a Visual SLAM software stack which provides a full 3D position and orientation for indoor applications and robotics.

As a software provider, Intermodalics allows you to work with a broad range of 3rd party sensor sets to integrate into your product offering. This allows you to get reliable position information such that you can focus on the application logic.

Common sensors used are:

  • 2D (fisheye) Cameras
  • Inertial Measurement Units (IMU)
  • 2D LIDAR
  • Drive wheel encoders
  • Grid localisation QR code cameras

Our software takes care of the learning & mapping process, real-time location calculations, device management and map updating.

Contact us for a demo
the floorplan of a supermarket as seen by a visual positioning software

Large scale map creation & updates (picture scale: supermarket size).

Applications using Visual Positioning Systems

Visual positioning offers the flexibility to work with your specific application. Visual positioning allows your device to localize virtually anything in a map. Navigate a mobile robot, scan a room in 3D or augment your indoor sensors with position information!

Obstacle detection, avoidance and navigation

In combination with 3D cameras, this allows mobile robots to follow a path and detect and avoid obstacles.

Floor plan generation and 3D reconstruction

Attaching a visual positioning system to a 3D camera allows for mapping rooms in 3D in an affordable way.

Goods tracking for Warehouses

Augment pallet trucks with position tracking to improve efficiency.