Swarical: An Integrated Hierarchical Approach to Localizing Flying Light Specks

Hamed Alimohammadzadeh, Shahram Ghandeharizadeh

Abstract: Swarical, a \underline{Swar}m-based hierarch\underline{ical} localization technique, enables miniature drones, known as Flying Light Specks (FLSs), to accurately and efficiently localize and illuminate complex 2D and 3D shapes. Its accuracy depends on the physical hardware (sensors) of FLSs, which are used to track neighboring FLSs in order to localize themselves. It uses the hardware specification to convert mesh files into point clouds that enable a swarm of FLSs to localize at the highest accuracy afforded by their hardware. Swarical considers a heterogeneous mix of FLSs with different orientations for their tracking sensors, ensuring a line of sight between a localizing FLS and its anchor FLS. We present an implementation using Raspberry cameras and ArUco markers. A comparison of Swarical with a state of the art decentralized localization technique shows that it is as accurate and more than 2x faster.

Primary Subject Area: [Experience] Interactions and Quality of Experience

Secondary Subject Area: [Experience] Multimedia Applications, [Systems] Systems and Middleware

Relevance To Conference: This paper describes next generation 3D multimedia displays and how to localize drones with light sources, Flying Light Specks, to illuminate complex 2D and 3D shapes.

Submission Number: 2440