US 12,014,515 B2
Estimating a pose of a spatially movable platform
Rogier Han Anneke De Rijk, Eindhoven (NL); Albert Maas, Eindhoven (NL); Arpit Ag-Garwal, Eindhoven (NL); and Yuri Fedor Steinbuch, Eindhoven (NL)
Appl. No. 17/056,701
Filed by AVULAR B.V., Eindhoven (NL)
PCT Filed May 17, 2019, PCT No. PCT/NL2019/050289
§ 371(c)(1), (2) Date Nov. 18, 2020,
PCT Pub. No. WO2019/226045, PCT Pub. Date Nov. 28, 2019.
Prior Publication US 2021/0209791 A1, Jul. 8, 2021
Int. Cl. G06T 7/73 (2017.01); B64C 39/02 (2023.01); B64U 101/30 (2023.01)
CPC G06T 7/73 (2017.01) [B64C 39/024 (2013.01); B64U 2101/30 (2023.01); G06T 2207/30204 (2013.01); G06T 2207/30252 (2013.01)] 16 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method of estimating a pose of a spatially movable platform, comprising:
providing at least one beacon comprising an optical transmitter;
each beacon transmitting an optical radiation signal using said optical transmitter, each beacon transmitting a mutually different fixed length blinking pattern comprising zero and non-zero light intensities by modulating an intensity of said optical radiation signal,
providing a spatially movable platform;
providing a pose estimation system comprising an image capturing device mounted on said spatially movable platform and image processing means communicatively connected to said image capturing device;
capturing a sequence of two-dimensional images of said optical radiation signal from said at least one beacon by said image capturing device; and
processing said sequence of two-dimensional images by said image processing means, characterized in that said processing said sequence of two-dimensional images by said image processing means comprises:
identifying at least one image object in said sequence of two-dimensional images;
determining an intensity variation of said at least one image object;
detecting said fixed length blinking pattern relating to one of said at least one beacon using said intensity variation; and
matching said image object to a corresponding beacon using said detected fixed length blinking pattern to obtain a at least one matched image object;
estimating a pose of said spatially movable platform relative to said at least one beacon using said at least one matched image object; wherein said modulating said intensity of said optical radiation signal of said beacon is performed using at least two different non-zero radiation states; and
wherein said intensity variation of said at least one image object in said sequence of two dimensional images is between at least two different non-zero intensity states.