Spatially Mapping Smart Objects within AR Scenes

As a novel interface which bridges the real and the digital, Augmented Reality (AR) has become a promising surrogate for interacting with proliferating smart things. Users are exposed to the functionalities of several devices to make up a smart environment. The key part of interacting with a smart environment in mobile AR is mapping of the smart objects globally, i.e., knowing where the smart things are located in the AR scene. Simple scene augmentation, multi-view object detection, and pose estimation have been achieved by detecting the objects in a camera's local view. But, there has been little to no direction in enabling AR interaction with the surrounding smart environment as a whole ecology.

Researchers at Purdue University have developed an AR system called Scenariot, a fast estimation of the 3D locations of smart things that exploits the spatial relationships for location aware interactions. Using the system, a user can survey the surrounding environment while moving and instantly approximate the location of the IoT devices with an accuracy of ~0.4 meters even if a device is not in the camera's local field of view.

Advantages:

-Estimate 3D locations of distributed smart things

-Rapidly map and interact with smart things in AR scenes

-Accuracy of ~0.4m

Potential Applications:

-Augmented Reality

-IoT Devices

-Applications demonstrating usage of proposed technology

TRL: 4

Intellectual Property:

Keywords: Augmented Reality, AR system, Scenariot, IoT devices location, smart environment interaction, 3D location estimation, location-aware AR, AR scene mapping, spatial relationships, mobile AR, Augmented Reality, Computer Technology, Interaction, Internet of Things, Mapping, Robotics, Scene Augmentation, Spatial Mapping