These boots provide accurate location without using GPS

[OyaYansa]

A team of engineers from the University of Utah (United States) has designed a system that allows to carry out an accurate location without GPS. It is a set of sensors and circuits mounted on a boot, and the platform has the ability to determine the position of the user with an accuracy of five meters both indoors and outdoors.

Surely you know how the global positioning system works. It is based on the mathematical principle of trilateration, so to determine the location of the user it is necessary to use a GPS receiver and be in the line of sight of at least three of the 24 satellites in orbit that are used to determine the positions.

Although GPS are very useful and are becoming more accurate, they have the problem that they do not work properly indoors. The prototype that these researchers have created solves this difficulty, since their platform is able to determine the location without using the satellites.

It consists of a boot that mounts an inertial measurement unit or IMU by its acronym in English, which is an electronic device that contains a gyroscope, a magnetometer and an accelerometer to measure and report on speed, orientation and gravitational forces. In the template of the boot there is a flexible MEMS pressure sensor that registers each footprint, and on the side it incorporates a circuit board that connects to a laptop computer stored in a backpack.

In the tests, the prototype was able to track the user's position for about three kilometers with a maximum error of 5.5 meters. "Performance is comparable to GPS, but it works indoors," says Qingbo Guo, one of the team members.

The system is an initial prototype and there is still a lot of work ahead, but its developers believe that its navigation system without GPS can be very useful in many applications, especially in rescue and rescue work or video games of virtual or augmented reality , among other examples.