A Method for Location Initialization of Handheld Devices using Autonomous Driving Vehicles for Interactive Systems

One basic function performed by autonomous vehicles is estimation of their relative position within the environment, using LiDAR and high-precision 3D point-cloud maps. We propose a method for acquiring the relative position of smartphones by exploiting the localization information of mobility systems and their user interaction functionality. Generally, the technology required for estimating the position of a device is a trade-off between accuracy and the simplicity of the device. Our proposed method is a real-time, self-positioning approach, using a vehicle's own position and mapping information as an initialization reference for estimating a smartphone's relative position. The system continues to track the smartphone and to estimate its position after the initial linkup with the vehicle. The results of our experimental evaluation confirm that the phone can be accurately tracked and its position corrected, both indoors and outdoors, without any special equipment, and with a sufficiently small processing load for the smartphone.