Crown Equipment Corporation

Crown Equipment Company

Lucas Waltz

Kashyap Chandrasekar

Jacob Jay Thomson

Ryan Michaels Estep

Thomas L Mallak

Bing Zheng

Steve Mangette

A method for vehicle positioning or navigation utilizing associated feature pairs may include creating a plurality of associated feature pairs by retrieving an initial set of camera data from the camera comprising two-dimensional UV space information, forming pairs from the UV space information, and associating each pair from the UV space information with pairs from each of the plurality of three-dimensional global feature points of the industrial facility map, calculating a best estimate poses from calculated vehicle poses of the associated feature pairs, using an accumulated odometry to update the best estimate pose to a current localized position and setting a seed position as the current localized position. The navigation of the materials handling vehicle is tracked and/or navigated along the inventory transit surface navigate in at least a partially automated manner utilizing the current localized position.

Vehicle positioning or navigation utilizing associated feature pairs

According to the embodiments described herein, a method for vehicle positioning or navigation utilizing associated feature pairs may include creating a plurality of associated feature pairs by retrieving an initial set of camera data from the camera comprising two-dimensional UV space information, forming pairs from the UV space information, and associating each pair from the UV space information with pairs from each of the plurality of three-dimensional global feature points of the industrial facility map, calculating a best estimate poses from calculated vehicle poses of the associated feature pairs, using an accumulated odometry to update the best estimate pose to a current localized position and setting a seed position as the current localized position. The navigation of the materials handling vehicle is tracked and/or navigated along the inventory transit surface navigate in at least a partially automated manner utilizing the current localized position.

According to the embodiments described herein, a method for lost vehicle recovery utilizing associated feature pairs may include, for a materials handling vehicle determined to be lost, creating a plurality of associated feature pairs by retrieving a subsequent set of camera data from a camera comprising two-dimensional UV space information, forming pairs from the UV space information, and associating each formed pair with pairs from each of a plurality of three-dimensional global feature points of an industrial facility map. The method may further include calculating a best estimate pose from calculated vehicle poses of the associated feature pairs based on a highest-rated pair of the plurality of associated feature pairs, using an accumulated odometry to update the best estimate pose to a current localized position, updating the seed position as the current localized position, and operating the materials handling vehicle utilizing the updated seed position.

Lost vehicle recovery utilizing associated feature pairs

Systems and methods for providing a vehicular navigation control interface are included in the present disclosure. Some embodiments include a navigation system and a vehicle with a vehicle control module (VCM), a navigation control module (NCM), and a navigation control interface, where the VCM receives a manual command from an operator to implement a manual control function. In some embodiments the NCM receives an automatic command from the navigation system to implement an automatic control function via the VCM and the navigation control interface directly connects the VCM and the NCM to facilitate communication between the VCM and NCM for implementing automatic mode and for reporting implementation of a manual mode.

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Auckland, New Zealand

Lucas Waltz