Smarter GPS Using Linux

Sick of having your GPS tell you to turn the wrong way up a one-way street or lead you to a dead end? Fear not: Linux-based technology developed at NICTA is on its way to help make personal navigation systems more accurate. AutoMap, developed by National ICT Australia (NICTA), uses machine vision techniques that can detect and classify geometric shapes from video footage. These shapes include things like signs and company logos: the type of fixtures that change frequently in a neighborhood and make it difficult for digital map makers to keep their products up to date. Currently, to keep on top of this, the mapping companies need to get someone to physically drive up and down each street in a van with five or six cameras fixed in all directions. There will be a driver and a co-driver who will sit and make annotations. They then take this footage back to the office where they have an army of slaves who will look at this footage frame by frame and record where all the signs are. What they provide is an intelligent solution that can automatically detect signs from video footage without having to employ an army of slaves to do it. The AutoMap system uses some of the technology developed as part of an earlier smart cars project.

Although the product is now ready for commercial deployment and discussions are underway with the significant mapping companies, research on the project will continue. They are looking at placing this technology inside a little camera and putting it in taxis, fleet vehicles, and garbage trucks that are going about their business. These vehicles will traverse the whole road network on a regular basis. They will be able to automatically detect points of interest and automatically send this information back to base where a complete and constantly updating map emerges over time. The research team will also be developing methods to recognise three-dimensional images like park benches and speed cameras. This research and technology is almost entirely Linux-based. The research team also use an Intel-based UMPC (an ASUS R50A). NICTA predicts that the digital mapping market will expand significantly as companies like Google, Microsoft and Yahoo continue to develop and release location based services. Whilst these companies currently purchase some mapping information from digital map producers it is expected they will quickly shift to developing and maintaining their own databases.

More information:

http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php?q=article/313968/new_linux-based_technology_make_smarter_gps&fp=&fpid=