Exploiting sensors on mobile phones to improve wide-area localization

In this paper, we discuss how the sensors available in modern smartphones can improve 6-degree-of-freedom (6DOF) localization in wide-area environments. In our research, we focus on phones as a platform for large-scale Augmented Reality (AR) applications. Thus, our aim is to estimate the position and orientation of the device accurately and fast — it is unrealistic to assume that users are willing to wait tenths of seconds before they can interact with the application. We propose supplementing vision methods with sensor readings from the compass and accelerometer available in most modern smartphones. We evaluate this approach on a large-scale reconstruction of the city center of Graz, Austria. Our results show that our approach improves both accuracy and localization time, in comparison to an existing localization approach based solely on vision. We finally conclude our paper with a real-world validation of the approach on an iPhone 4S.