Automatic building mapping could help emergency responders
MIT researchers have built a wearable sensor system that automatically creates a digital map of the environment through which the wearer is moving. The prototype system, described in a paper slated for the Intelligent Robots and Systems conference in Portugal next month, is envisioned as a tool to help emergency responders coordinate disaster response. The prototype sensor included a stripped-down Microsoft Kinect camera (top) and a laser rangefinder (bottom), which looks something like a camera lens seen side-on.Photo: Patrick Gillooly In experiments conducted on the MIT campus, a graduate student wearing the sensor system wandered the halls, and the sensors wirelessly relayed data to a laptop in a distant conference room. Observers in the conference room were able to track the student’s progress on a map that sprang into being as he moved.Connected to the array of sensors is a handheld pushbutton device that the wearer can use to annotate the map....