Determining position inside building via laser rangefinder and handheld computer

DWPI Title: Location determining method for user-occupied room of building, involves transmitting collected range information to assistant and computing position of laser rangefinder within room on assistant without employing input from video camera
Abstract: An apparatus, computer software, and a method of determining position inside a building comprising selecting on a PDA at least two walls of a room in a digitized map of a building or a portion of a building, pointing and firing a laser rangefinder at corresponding physical walls, transmitting collected range information to the PDA, and computing on the PDA a position of the laser rangefinder within the room.
Use: Method for determining a location within a user-occupied room of a building using a personal digital assistant i.e. Hewlett-Packard IPAQ (RTM: international physical activity questionnaire personal digital assistant).
Advantage: The method accurately determines the location within a user-occupied room of building.
Novelty: The method involves selecting two physical walls of a room in a preset digitized map of a building or a portion of the building, on a personal digital assistant (PDA) (10). A single laser rangefinder i.e. Leica Disto Plus (RTM: hand-held laser meter) laser range finder, is pointed and fired at each of the corresponding physical walls. Collected range information is transmitted to the PDA and a position of the laser rangefinder within the room is computed on the PDA without employing input from a video camera. The computed position is displayed on the PDA.
Filed: 8/24/2006
Application Number: US2006509161A
Tech ID: SD 10043.1
This invention was made with Government support under Contract No. DE-NA0003525 awarded by the United States Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration. The Government has certain rights in the invention.
Data from Derwent World Patents Index, provided by Clarivate
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