Long-Range Binocular Vision Target Geolocation Using Handheld Electronic Devices in Outdoor Environment

Binocular vision is a passive method of simulating the human visual principle to perceive the distance to a target. Traditional binocular vision applied to target localization is usually suitable for short-range area and indoor environment. This paper presents a novel vision-based geolocation method for long-range targets in outdoor environment, using handheld electronic devices such as smart phones and tablets. This method solves the problems in long-range localization and determining geographic coordinates of the targets in outdoor environment. It is noted that these sensors necessary for binocular vision geolocation such as the camera, GPS, and inertial measurement unit (IMU), are intergrated in these handheld electronic devices. This method, employing binocular localization model and coordinate transformations, is provided for these handheld electronic devices to obtain the GPS coordinates of the targets. Finally, two types of handheld electronic devices are used to conduct the experiments for targets in long range up to 500m. The experimental results show that this method yields the target geolocation accuracy along horizontal direction with nearly 20m, achieving comparable or even better performance than monocular vision methods.