6D POSITIONING SYSTEM USING A SHADOW SENSOR

摘要

A positioning system, in particular, positioning in six dimensions of a sensor with respect to an assembly composed of a multitude of LEDs, is provided. The sensor is a shadow sensor and has a mask and a 2D imager. By recording the shadow of the mask cast by each LED on the imager, and by properly multiplexing the LEDs, the system can compute the 6D position of the LED assembly with respect to the shadow sensor. This computation is based, in part, on treating the shadow of the mask cast on the imager as the equivalent of the projection of light in a pinhole camera.

主权项

1. A six dimensional (6D) positioning system comprising:
a target comprising at least four light sources; a shadow sensor configured to sense shadows cast on the sensor by light emitted from the at least four light sources of the target; and a processor, wherein the processor is configured to:
sync shadow sensing with a pulsing of the at least four light sources of the target;distinguish between the sensed shadows from each of the at least four light sources of the target;determine two dimensional (2D) positions corresponding to each of the at least four light sources of the target based on the sensed shadows; andcompute a 6D position of the target with respect to the shadow sensor based on the determined 2D positions.