Tuesday, December 25, 2012

3D Laser Mapping Launches Mobile Indoor Mapping System

Zebedee is a hand-held mapping device designed to be used both indoors and for forestry and other outdoor applications where GPS cannot be used. 3D Laser Mapping is licensing the technology from a UK start-up called GeoSLAM, after it was initially developed by Australia's national science agency, CSIRO .

Zebedee arose out of CSIRO's need to map a set of caves. "Nothing motivates researchers more than inconvenience. And carrying a large stick with a motor and a battery and a computer on a trolley and abseiling into a cave system was just not feasible," explained Elliot Duff, an expert in robotics at the Australian agency. This led him and his colleagues to develop a system that uses "human motion - or passive actuation - to drive the motor of the sensor, not a machine."

Zebedee uses the environment to calculate trajectory; the lidar becomes a trajectory sensor, comparing the trajectories of sets of features. The accuracy of the whole system is dependent both on the accuracy of the laser scanner and the feature-richness of the environment (e.g. mapping a long, featureless corridor or room is problematic).

Scan data is currently processed offline via Dropbox. "Our intention in future is to make it online real-time, so maps are actually created, too, whilst you're walking round the environment," said Duff. "That has applications for first responders, emergency services and security."

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

3D Laser Mapping Launches Mobile Indoor Mapping System

Zebedee is a hand-held mapping device designed to be used both indoors and for forestry and other outdoor applications where GPS cannot be used. 3D Laser Mapping is licensing the technology from a UK start-up called GeoSLAM, after it was initially developed by Australia's national science agency, CSIRO .

Zebedee arose out of CSIRO's need to map a set of caves. "Nothing motivates researchers more than inconvenience. And carrying a large stick with a motor and a battery and a computer on a trolley and abseiling into a cave system was just not feasible," explained Elliot Duff, an expert in robotics at the Australian agency. This led him and his colleagues to develop a system that uses "human motion - or passive actuation - to drive the motor of the sensor, not a machine."

Zebedee uses the environment to calculate trajectory; the lidar becomes a trajectory sensor, comparing the trajectories of sets of features. The accuracy of the whole system is dependent both on the accuracy of the laser scanner and the feature-richness of the environment (e.g. mapping a long, featureless corridor or room is problematic).

Scan data is currently processed offline via Dropbox. "Our intention in future is to make it online real-time, so maps are actually created, too, whilst you're walking round the environment," said Duff. "That has applications for first responders, emergency services and security."