Distributed user tracking concepts for augmented reality applications

Augmented Reality (AR) constitutes a new user interface paradigm. Using light headsets and hand-held or worn computing equipment, users can roam their daily working environment while being continuously in contact with their computer systems. For AR to work properly in a large factory, new system architectures have to be designed with consideration to the special requirements imposed by AR. In particular, augmented reality requires real-time facilities to track the user's position and viewing direction. In the past, various carefully calibrated sensing devices have been used for this purpose including magnetic trackers and active LED-systems. Research is now focussing on computer vision based methods. It is our hypothesis that in the future, the most successful indoor approaches will combine local (user-worn) vision-based tracking methods with global user tracking schemes from fixed (wall-mounted) sensors, using mobile wireless networking technology to allow the user-worn system to communicate with the globally available sensing infrastructure in an intelligent building. We propose the concept of "AR-ready" intelligent buildings which provide built-in tracking services via different sensing modalities.