Vision-based positioning system

Conventional outdoor navigation systems are usually based on orbital satellites, e.g., global positioning system (GPS) and global navigation satellite system (GLONASS). The latest advances from wearable, e.g., BaiduEye and Google Glass, have enabled new approaches to leverage information from the surrounding environment. For example, they enable the change from passively receiving information to actively requesting information. Thus, such changes might inspire brand new application scenarios that were not possible before. In this work, we propose a vision-based navigation system based on wearable like Baidu Eye. We discuss the associated challenges and propose potential solutions for each of them. The system utilizes crowd sensing to collect and build a traffic signpost database for positioning reference. Then it leverages context information, such as cell identification (Cell ID), signal strength, and altitude combined with traffic sign detection and recognition to enable real-time positioning. A hybrid cloud architecture is proposed to enhance the capability of sensing devices (SD) to realize the proposed vision. © 2016 The Journal of China Universities of Posts and Telecommunications