ALO: An ultrasound system for localization and orientation based on angles
Microelectronics Journal
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Context awareness will become increasingly importantin future domestic consumer electronics. In many domesticcontext aware applications, there is a need for location andorientation information about persons, devices or objectsin the home. This information can be provided by a dedicatedindoor location system. A consumer location systemshould be robust, safe, easy to set up, low cost, and shouldhave a minimal infrastructure. In this paper, a step towardsconsumer location systems is taken by proposing an ultrasonicpositioning method that needs just a single compactbase station to measure 3D positions of mobile devices ina room. The method employs ultrasound time-of-flight tri-laterationto estimate device positions, using a base stationcontaining an array of three ultrasound transducers.Five potential problems of the proposed method are identified;the main problem being line-of-sight path occlusion.The method has been prototyped, and initial results showan accuracy of 1.41 m or better for 95% of the position estimates,in case of a good line-of-sight path. It is concludedthat the method is promising for providing 3D position informationat around 1 m accuracy for context aware applications,but that the problem of line-of-sight occlusion requiresfurther investigation.