Skip to main content

More on WiFiSLAM standalone sensor fusion

A few weeks ago we wrote (here) about WiFiSLAM's demonstration of standalone sensor fusion (motion sensing) technology, running without any other methods assisting it. At the time we explained a few questions we had regarding their technology, particularly how they achieved their strong performance, while most others have needed to integrate sensor fusion with other technologies.

Since then, WiFiSLAM has answered some of our questions on their blog (here) - here is an excerpt from their article:


  • The demo video includes no maps constraints. It is purely accelerometer, gyroscope, and compass.
  • We are able to get better-than-typical accuracy because we are taking non-traditional pattern-matching approaches to sensor fusion rather than the conventional “double-integration + Kalman filter” techniques used traditionally.
  • We held the phone in front of us, trying to mimic a typical smartphone user who is following a map and walking while looking at their phone. Nothing super-specific.


See their blog article for more details of their sensor fusion technology and how it's deployed.

As we've written for over a year, we believe that sensor fusion has a huge potential that is only starting to be tapped.  Our reports on indoor location positioning technology have detailed research in the area, both by mobile software companies and by chip makers. The chip makers are particularly exciting, since hardware support could allow sensor fusion to run pervasively without loading down the smartphone CPU.

Some say that 2012 was the year that indoor location technology bloomed, but from what we report about research still in progress, we think that the best is yet to come.....

Popular posts from this blog

33 Indoor Location Related Start-up Acquisitions

  Acquisitions Continue in the Indoor Location Industry; Grizzly Analytics Shows Price Growth at the High End and Continuity at the Low End New York, NY, February 22, 2021 - Despite the recent pandemic, M&A deals in the indoor location area have maintained a steady pace of 4-5 deals a year. At the high end of the spectrum, prices have increased to up to $400 Million for the highest priced recent deal and $165 Million for the second highest. At the lower end, many earlier stage companies have been acquired in the $2-3 Million range. A newly updated report from Grizzly Analytics gives prices and strategic details for 33 acquisitions in the indoor location area.  While the highest priced indoor location acquisitions have historically involved chip-based technologies, recent acquisitions have been more varied. “A few years ago the focus of indoor location M&A was all around pure localization technologies. The biggest deal to date is in fact for a chip-based localization ...
Read more

Intel acquiring gesture recognition start-up InVision Biometrics

News broke this morning ( here , here ) that Intel is about to acquire Israeli start-up company InVision Biometrics .  The company has developed 3D sensor technology that recognizes human movement, including gestures, and interprets them for a wide variety of applications. The company's technology is based on, and apparently builds on, research by Professor Ron Kimmel at the Technion Institute of Technology.  Professor Kimmel has a number of patents in this and other areas, some owned by the Technion and some licensed to companies. For Israel, dubbed the Start-Up Nation , this acquisition continues a number of trends.  It's Intel's second acquisition of an Israeli start-up company in October alone, having acquired Telmap at the beginning of the month.  Both acquisitions are interesting in that they move Intel into new areas that have been previously handled by software.  Grizzly Analytics predicts that Intel will acquire more start-ups in software areas th...
Read more

Adding real value to smartphone camera pictures

Most technology features follow a similar path, from imitation to improvement to transformation.  First they imitate something that came before, like telephones imitating the telegraphs of yesteryear.  Then they improve on them, like phones entering individual homes. Then they transform the entire endeavor, completely surpassing the previous technology, like phones automatically connecting people without operator involvement, which enabled society to communicate in ways that telegraph users never contemplated. Cellphone cameras are following a similar path.  At the beginning cellphone cameras were imitating digital cameras, adding the convenience of carrying only one device but basically doing the same as digital cameras did.  Then they improved on them, both with quality improvements and with the ability to share pictures wirelessly without wiring the phone to a computer.  The ability to instantly share and synchronize pictures from a phone is somewhat transf...
Read more