Global Positioning Satellites, or more commonly GPS, have really changed our lives. Developed for the military, these evolved in use to provide driving directions. But in recent years these devices found a role in fitness and health, providing a way to track distance of sport watches and other workout equipment.
But even as Timex noted last year, GPS doesn’t work in all conditions, notably in space (not much of a health issue), indoors or worst of all underwater. This is why training watches aren’t quite ready for triathlons. But an assistant professor of engineering at the University of California, Riverside has received a three-year, $447,000 grant to develop techniques to navigate those areas where GPS doesn’t work.
The work by Anastasios Mourikis, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at the Bourns College of Engineering, can be used for navigation indoors by visually impaired people or emergency responders in a burning building or collapsed mine and for small-scale drone surveillance by law enforcement and military personal.
“This is a building block,” said Mourikis. “It can be used for many, many tasks.”
Mourikis’ study noted that navigation without GPS on large-scale systems, such as autonomous ground vehicles, has been extensively studied in the robotics research community and strong solutions have been developed. However, those solutions typically require large and costly computers and sensors, and use a lot of battery power. The problem it seems is that these algorithms can’t readily be used on a small-scale device, such as a cell phone, in part because if those algorithms were put on a cell phone they would drain the battery in a very quickly. Mourikis plans to focus on cell phones because they are so common and also, for the most part, have a camera, which can be used for finding one’s location when GPS is not available.
To this end he is developing algorithms that will that optimally use the phone’s built-in cameras, computing power, and limited battery life. He plans to implement the algorithms using open-source software that will be made available on the Internet for users to install. This software will also be instrumental for connecting with K-12 students at local outreach events.
Mourikis will collaborate with the Bourns College of Engineering’s Mathematics, Engineering and Science Achievement (MESA) program, a science and engineering outreach program that serves 19 area schools and works with hundreds of educationally disadvantaged students to help excel in science, technology, engineering and mathematics classes. And by the end of the three-year grant, Mourikis hopes to have a cell phone app that can provide accurate position information in areas where GPS is not available, such as indoors.
That could be a game changer for those developing tools using GPS for health and fitness.
Anastasios Mourikis, Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering
Bourns College of Engineering