Positioning technology sans satellites

sikma · Post by **sikma** » 30 May 05 6:19 pm

Dont know if this has already been posted somewhere in the forums but have a read of this interesting article.
http://theage.com.au/news/Breaking/Posi ... 74342.html

cheers
Jarrod

The Garner Family · Post by **The Garner Family** » 30 May 05 6:29 pm

"Contrast that with standard satellite GPS, which is accurate to 20 to 30 metres in the open."

Having read that I took everything else with a grain of salt.

The Coffee's · Post by **The Coffee's** » 30 May 05 10:03 pm

They forgot to add:<p>
"Unlike the current Global Positioning System which is free to access, the LocataLite tower with antenna system will cost users a moderate fee, because with an Ausgrant we have to demonstrate to the government our 5 year business plan.<p>
Stay Tuned for an antenna coming to your basement soon!

zactyl · Post by **zactyl** » 30 May 05 11:11 pm

Sounds like a great technology though, for automated warehouses etc.

Saying GPS is only accurate to 20-30 metres is a bit misleading though, my understanding was that it's accurate to 15 metres (even when it's claiming it's accurate to 5 metres

).

Papa Bear_Left · Post by **Papa Bear_Left** » 30 May 05 11:33 pm

I'm glad to see they've finally gone public with this, as I've been constrained by commercial confidence on this for years!

Their initial thinking was for things like the situation at the World Trade Centre after the first tower collapsed. Nobody knew where the firefighters etc were in the smoke and dust. A few beacons off the back of a truck and the coordinator could have a 3D map of his people's position to within a couple of centimetres. (In this case, their beacons get their positions with standard DGPS)

I hope it takes off, and makes at least a bit of money locally before it gets bought and goes offshore...

Mind Socket · Post by **Mind Socket** » 31 May 05 1:33 pm

I wanted to build a system like this for recording sports matches, each player has a tracker and you record their positions. The technology exists, but my know-how is lacking.

- R .. I better go read the article now.

aussiecoder · Post by **aussiecoder** » 31 May 05 4:29 pm

Mind Socket wrote:I wanted to build a system like this for recording sports matches, each player has a tracker and you record their positions. The technology exists, but my know-how is lacking.

- R .. I better go read the article now.

I'd expect if you could get it prototyped, you'd get Kerry Packer to fund the final development.

It might make his cricket matches a little more interesting

Mind Socket · Post by **Mind Socket** » 31 May 05 5:22 pm

Heheh, yeh. I've seen a similar technology employed for ice hockey overseas. It even goes so far as to analyse collisions ... "at 8m/s-2, that gotta hurt!"

The alternative involves a lot of people with angle measurement devices following players around and triangulating manually.
That, or using video footage and calibrating it.

- R