Sub-Millimeter 3D Positioning with HiveTracker

We take it for granted that when you’re outside, you can normally find out where you are and where you need to go using your phone and a GPS signal. This is great if you need to find a friend’s house or get off on the correct exit from the interstate, but it relies on the fact that you’re (1) outdoors, and (2) can tolerate being within a few feet or more.

Indoor positioning, however, takes a different set of techniques, and using two so-called “lighthouses” from an HTC Vive system allows the HiveTracker (still a work-in-progress) to measure its position in space to within less than a millimeter. The device acts as a miniaturized Vive, picking up on rapid laser sweeps from each lighthouse. Based on the time it receives the laser signals, along with supplemental input from a 9 DoF IMU, the angle at which the lasers are pointed can be inferred, and the position in space is triangulated.

While the concept makes sense — perhaps after a bit of deep thinking and consideration of the dev log and project brief — the fact that it can be accurately implemented is a testament to the team working on HiveTracker, as well as the state of technology that we can easily get our hands on.