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Inertial Labs is continuously developing new cutting edge technologies with an eye on future requirements in the field of position and orientation tracking. With the significant achievements of Inertial Labs WOM and OSv3 products reaching the limitations of what can be accomplished using inertial sensors, Inertial Labs has focused recent efforts on the integration of augmenting technologies. Those technologies that, when coupled with the existing Inertial Labs products, help to make them even more accurate and more reliable than they are able to be using only inertial sensors.0
In addition to those product developments listed below, Inertial Labs is always interested in the pursuit and development of interesting technologies related to position and orientation. With development of its sensor fusion platform being built to allow for integration of virtually any orientation or position technology to its system algorithms, Inertial Labs is well equipped to assist in the development of other high-end integrated orientation solutions. Contact Us with your orientation needs.
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Some examples of Inertial Labs Future Products already under development… |
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Tri-GPS Interferometer |
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Making use of advances in GPS technology, and the increased accuracy able to be achieved today with commercial GPS receivers, Inertial Labs has been able to develop a GPS Interferometer that provides sub-degree accuracy in heading, pitch, and roll based on the use of three GPS antennas placed in a triangle formation, 0.5m from each other. |
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By relying on GPS position data to determine heading the Tri-GPS Interferometer eliminates any possible errors related to magnetic interference; a key problem for magnetometer based orientation solutions. Also, the use of three antennas packaged in a triangular formation provides significant advantages over more typical GPS interferometer solutions which rely on two antennas. The three antenna approach provides a heading reference regardless of pitch/roll of the object under measure, has potential for greater accuracy as it provides three heading references which can be averaged, and provides higher reliability for situations involving poor GPS coverage. |
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OptoWOM - Optically Stabilized Weapon Orientation Module |
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With the capabilities of today’s microprocessor technologies and advances in camera systems regarding performance, size, and cost new technologies in the field of position and orientation tracking based on image processing have emerged over the last several years. Using images taken from a camera it is possible to maintain an understanding of orientation changes by comparing current and previous images taken over a period of time. |
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Inertial Labs is making use of this technology in a current development effort to further advance the robustness of its WOM product when in the presence of extended magnetic disturbance. By adding little more than a cell phone camera to the system the result will become a 3DOF orientation device that provides a very high update rate (up to 100Hz) while at the same time being impervious to magnetic disturbances by maintaining a heading accuracy better than 0.5deg even during long term magnetic disturbances. |
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In development, Inertial Labs is completing two versions: OptoWOM Nadir and OptoWOM Horizon. OptoWOM Nadir will make use of a camera that points directly to the ground utilizing grass, dirt, rocks, and other objects to determine heading changes when the WOM’s magnetometer data is deemed unreliable. Likewise OptoWOM Horizon also provides an alternative heading reference, but relies on a camera that looks outward into the horizon and utilizes objects such as trees, buildings, and other structures for its references. |
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In preliminary tests, Inertial Labs OptoWOM systems have shown the ability to maintain accuracy better than 0.5deg peak error even when relying solely on optical image tracking for its main heading reference. |
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CelestialWOM - Weapon Orientation Augmented by Celestial Tracking
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In addition to the efforts related to adding a relative orientation reference using a camera pointed either into the horizon or to the ground, Inertial Labs is also currently developing an integrated inertial and celestial tracker that will make use of celestial objects to provide an absolute heading reference to the WOM. Celestial trackers have traditionally been used in maritime applications as a guidance system, however such systems are expensive and typically too large to be considered practical for applications like that targeted for Inertial Labs WOM. However, this too is changing with the advances being made in camera based systems. Incorporation of a celestial tracker to Inertial Labs WOM will result in a final device which will maintain accuracy in the range of 0.3deg or better absolute heading accuracy even in situations of a poor magnetic environment. Additionally, with the incorporate of an absolute heading reference device, the requirements for calibration of the sensor when mounted onto different metallic objects becomes greatly reduced by making use of the absolute heading information during operation; ie. incorporating an on-the-fly calibration of the WOM. |
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