What is Dragonfly

Dragonfly is a robust indoor location technology that uses the most advanced VSLAM algorithms to provide localization and track any type of mobile vehicle that can be equipped (or is already equipped) with only a wide-angle monocular camera and a computing unit.

Dragonfly thus delivers in real time (or on a historical basis), the X-Y-Z metric coordinates and 3D spatial orientation (6 Degrees of Freedom) of robots, AMRs, drones, and industrial vehicles (such as forklifts) with centimeter-level accuracy, thus laying the foundation for more complex applications aimed at improving the productivity, and safety in any vertical.

How does Dragonfly work?

The principle of operation is very simple:

• During the system setup phase:
  • the wide-angle camera sends the video feed of its surroundings to a computing unit.
  • the computing unit takes care of extracting the features of the environment, in each of the frames, and creating a 3D map of the environment (which is geo-referenced using a DWG file of the environment).
• During its usage in production:
  • the wide-angle camera sends the real-time video feed of the environment around it to the computing unit.
  • the computing unit takes care of extracting the features of the environment in each of the frames and comparing them with those that are present in the previously created 3D virtual representation of the environment. This process allows Dragonfly to calculate the position and orientation in the 3D space of the camera (and thus of the asset on which it is mounted).

Why is Dragonfly the present and future of indoor localization?

Dragonfly represents the state-of-the-art for indoor localization technologies at locations where GPS/GNSS cannot be used.  Dragonfly is much more competitive compared to other indoor localization technologies based on LiDAR, UWB, Wi-Fi/Bluetooth RSS.

• Easy setup – no need for error-prone and time-consuming calibrations of ad-hoc UWB infrastructure: just a camera and a computing unit onboard your mobile vehicles.
• Maintenance – Dragonfly cameras are easier to calibrate and are more robust to changes in the environment compared to LiDAR, which can struggle to maintain accuracy in contour recognition due to changes of the obstacle’s positions over time.
• Scalable – Dragonfly can grow following the size and growth of your fleet due to the independent computing units and the maps sharing mechanism.
• No Internet connection – no need to have a continuous Internet connection inside your venue.