Global-positioning system uses cameras instead of satellites

Dr Michael Milford from Queensland University of Technology’s Science and Engineering Faculty claims his research would make navigating a far cheaper and simpler task.

‘At the moment you need three satellites in order to get a decent GPS signal and even then it can take a minute or more to get a lock on your location,’ he said.

’There are some places geographically, where you just can’t get satellite signals and even in big cities we have issues with signals being scrambled because of tall buildings or losing them altogether in tunnels.’

The approach to visual navigation algorithms, which has been dubbed SeqSLAM (Sequence Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping), uses local best match and sequence recognition components to lock in locations. SeqSLAM uses the assumption that you are already in a specific location and tests that assumption over and over again.

Milford said the ‘revolution’ of visual-based navigation came about when Google took photos of almost every street in the world for their Street View project.