The present invention provides a 3D wireless optical positioning method and system, including the steps of: arranging two LED lamps on the ceiling to transmit optical information and provide illumination; arranging a receiver including two photodetectors in a receiving plane; calculating the distance between the LED lamps and the photodetectors respectively through the TOA (Time of Arrival) method; and finally determining the actual position and orientation angle of the receiver based on the geometrical relationship between the LED lamps and the photodetectors in the XYZ coordinate system, the two photodetectors having a distance determined as l therebetween and being situated in the same receiving plane, the receiver being situated below the two LED lamps, the range where the receiver is to be positioned being on any side of the plane consisting of the two LED lamps and the origin.

Methods and apparatuses are provided for use in monitoring product placement within a shopping facility. Some embodiments provide an apparatus configured to determine product placement conditions within a shopping facility, comprising: a transceiver configured to wirelessly receive communications; a product monitoring control circuit coupled with the transceiver; a memory coupled with the control circuit and storing computer instructions that when executed by the control circuit cause the control circuit to: obtain a composite three-dimensional (3D) scan mapping corresponding to at least a select area of the shopping facility and based on a series of 3D scan data; evaluate the 3D scan mapping to identify multiple product depth distances; and identify, from the evaluation of the 3D scan mapping, when one or more of the multiple product depth distances is greater than a predefined depth distance threshold from the reference offset distance of the product support structure.

A path finding system using a series of networked receiver beacons is disclosed. The system includes receiver beacons placed on a path. Each of the receiver beacons include a transceiver receiving and sending signals and a location indicator such as a LED, that when activated indicates the location of the receiver beacon. Each of the receiver beacons include a controller coupled to the indicator and the transceiver. The controller is operable to receive an activation signal to activate the indicator. A transmitter is paired with each of the receiver beacons. The transmitter includes a transceiver to send an activation signal to at least one of the receiver beacons. The receiver beacon receives the activation signal and activates the indicator. The receiver beacon also relays the activation signal to at least another receiver beacon.

The present disclosure relates to a tracking system for tracking the position and/or orientation of an object in an environment, the tracking system including: at least one camera mounted to the object; a plurality of spaced apart targets, at least some of said targets viewable by the at least one camera; and, one or more electronic processing devices configured to: determine target position data indicative of the relative spatial position of the targets; receive image data indicative of an image from the at least one camera, said image including at least some of the targets; process the image data to: identify one or more targets in the image; determine pixel array coordinates corresponding to a position of the one or more targets in the image; and, use the processed image data to determine the position and/or orientation of the object by triangulation.

A system can be used with a drone delivery service that facilitates a service delivery via at least one drone delivery device. The system includes a code generator configured to generate beacon data that identifies a subscriber. A beacon generator is configured to generate a wireless homing beacon that indicates the beacon data, wherein the wireless homing beacon is detectable by the at least one drone delivery device to facilitate the service delivery to the subscriber by the drone delivery device at a location selected by the subscriber and a network interface is configured to communicate via a network. The system receives delivery image data captured after the service delivery by the drone delivery device.

Electronic device comprising: a lighting device, capable of illuminating a room or the like; a photodetector; an ultra-wideband pulse transmitter; an ultra-wideband pulse receiver; a controller, connectable to the internet;
wherein the controller is adapted for coding a signal and transmitting it to the lighting device and/or to the pulse transmitter, and for decoding a signal received by the photodetector or the pulse receiver; wherein the lighting device is adapted to transmit the signal as a LiFi signal and the pulse transmitter is adapted to transmit the signal as a UWB signal.

An active marker apparatus is provided for securely affixing active markers to a wearable article of an object in a performance capture system. The active marker light components coupled to a strand, are inserted into a receptacle to position the active marker light components onto the wearable article. A gap is provided in a chamber between the active marker light component and an interior surface of a protrusion portion of the receptacle. At least a section of the protrusion portion permits light emitted from the active marker light component into the chamber, to diffuse in a manner that allows the light to be easily detected by a camera in the live action scene. Each active marker light component is locked into place in a respective receptacle by one or more channels that receive the strand. A cap fitting may further assist in securing the receptacle to the wearable article and optionally aid in visual detection of the receptacle.

Systems, apparatuses, and methods for determining item availability are provided. A computer implemented method for determining item availability in a shopping space comprising: receiving a request for an item for purchase from a customer, querying an inventory database to determine whether the item for purchase is in stock, in an event that the item for purchase is not in stock according to the inventory database: determining an out of stock response to present to the customer, in an event that the item for purchase is in stock according the inventory database: instructing a motorized transport unit to travel to a display space in the shopping space corresponding to the item for the purchase, determining whether the item is available in the display space based on information captured by one or more sensors of the motorized transport unit, and in an event that the item for purchase is not available in the display space: determining an item unavailable response to present to the customer.

A navigation system using Visible Light Communications (VLC), the associated transmitters and receivers, the navigation system comprising a plurality of VLC transmitters (201 to 207) and one or more GNSS receiver (430), each of the VLC transmitters being configured to transmit a positioning signal comprising a navigation message including time information, where the time information is a transmission time of a specific part of said navigation message derived from a GNSS reference time. The receivers (221) according to the invention are configured to calculate a position from either VLC pseudo ranges, GNSS pseudo ranges, or a combination thereof. The associated methods for transmitting positioning signals in a navigation system according to the invention, and for determining a position from a plurality of positioning signals transmitted by said navigation system.

A system (100) for communicating a presence of a device via a light source (110) configured to emit light comprising an embedded code is disclosed. The system (100) comprises: a controller (102) comprising: a receiver (106) configured to receive a response signal from a first device (120), which response signal comprises an identifier of the first device (120), and which response signal is indicative of that the embedded code has been detected by the first device (120), and a processor (104) configured to correlate the embedded code with the identifier of the first device (120), such that the embedded code is representative of the identifier of the first device (120).