wRoE..A.L.

RONALD AZUMA

Tracking Requirements for Augmented Reality

I In this Issue, Fltzmaurlc,~= and Feiner Errors in measured head orientation usu-
describe t w o different augmented- ally cause larger registration offsets than
reality systems. Such sy~stems re- object orientation errors do, making this
quire highly capable head and object requirement more critical for systems
trackers to create an effective Illusion of based on Head-Mounted Displays (HMDS).
virtual objects coexisting with the real Try the following simple demonstration.
world. For ordinary virtual environments Take out a dime and hold It at arm's
that completely replace the real world length. The diameter of the dime covers
with a virtual world, It sufflo~=s to know approximately 1.5 degrees of arc. In
the approximate position and orientation comparison, a full moon covers 1/2 de-
of the user's head. Small errors are not gree of arc. Now imagine a virtual coffee
easily discernible because the user's vis- cup sitting on the corner of a real table
ual sense tencls to override 1:he conflict- t w o meters away from you. An angular
Ing signals from his or her w~=stlbular and error of 1.5 degrees in head orientation
broprloceptlve systems. But In aug- moves the cup by about 52 mm. Clearly,
mented reality, virtual objec"ts supple- small orientation errors could result In a
ment rather than supplant tl~e real cup suspended in midair or interpene-
world. Preserving the Illusion that the trating the table. Similarly, If we want
t w o coexist requires proper alignment the cup to stay within 1 to 2 mm of Its
and reglstral~lon of the vlrtu~al objects to true position, then we cannot tolerate
the real world. Even tiny errors in regis- tracker positional errors of more than 1
tratlon are easily detectable by the to 2 mm.
human visual system. What does aug- Second, the combined latency of the
mented reality require from trackers to tracker and the graphics engine must be
avoid such errors? very low. Combined latency is the delay
First, a tracker must be accurate to a from the time the tracker subsystem
small fraction of a degree In orientation takes its measurements to the time the
and a few millimeters (mm) in position. corresponding images appear In the dis-
play devices. Many HMD-based systems
have a combined latency over 100 ms. At
F i g u r e 1. , C o n c e p t u a l c t r a w i n g o f a moderate head or object rotation rate
s e n s o r s v i i e w i n g b e a c o n s In t h e of 50 degrees per second, 100 millisec-
ceiling onds (ms) of latency causes 5 degrees of
angular error. At a rapid rate of 300 de-
grees per second, keeping angular errors
below 0.5 degrees requires a combined
latency of under 2 ms!
Finally, the tracker must work at long
ranges. When the environment Is com-
pletely virtual, long-range trackers are
not required because we can create an
Illusion of flight by translating all the
objects around a stationary user. But In
augmented reality, fMng is n o t a valid
means of locomotion. The virtual objects
must remain registered with the real
world. Since we cannot translate real
objects around a user at the touch of a
button, the user instead must move
himself or herself and the display de-
vices worn. Thus, many augmented-real-
ity applications demand extended-range
trackers that can support walking users.
For example, Fltzmaurice's active maps
and augmented-library applications re-
quire trackers that can cover an entire
map or all the bookshelves In the library,
respectively.
No existing system completely satisfies
all of these requirements. Systems com-
monly used to track airplanes, ships, and
cars have sufficient range but Insuffi-
cient accuracy. Many different tracking
technologies exist [1], but almost all are
short-range systems that cannot be eas-
Ily extended.
An exception Is an optoelectronic sys-
tem developed by UNC Chapel Hill that
can be extended to arbitrary room sizes,
while still providing reasonable tracking
performance. Optical sensors mounted
on the head unit view panels of Infrared
beacons In the ceiling above the user
(Photos 1, 2, Figure 1). The known loca-
tions of these beacons and the measure-
ments taken by the sensors provide
enough Information to compute the
position and orientation of the user's
head. The system can resolve head mo-
tions of under 2 mm in POSition and 0.2
degrees in orientation, w i t h o u t the dis-
tortions commonly seen in magnetic
trackers. Typical values for the update
rate and latency are 70- to 80HZ and 15-
to 30ms respectively. The existing ceiling
covers a 10-x-12 area (In feet), but we
can extend the range by simply adding
more panels to the ceiling grid. By the
time this article is published, a new ex-
panded ceiling that covers approximately
16- x 30 feet should be operational. UNC
first demonstrated this system to the
public In the Tomorrow's Realities gallery
of ACM'S SIGGRAPH '91 conference In Las

SO Jub 1993/Vol.36, No.7 ¢ O M l a l I I H I C A ' r l O N i O F ' I ' H I A C H


P h o t o 1. H M D w i t h f o u r o p t i c a l s e n s o r s a i m e d u p w a r d
P h o t o 2. T h e a c t u a l s y s t e m In o u r g r a p h i c s
vegas, and t o o u r k n o w l e d g e this Is t h e
first d e m o n s t r a t e d scalable tracking sys-
t e m f o r HMDS [2].
While this system is suitable f o r aug-
m e n t e d - r e a l i t y applications, it is far f r o m
Ideal. We need t o reduce t h e w e i g h t o f
t h e head u n i t and increase t h e restricted
head r o t a t i o n range. Due t o line-of-sight
constraints, this system is n o t well
suited f o r o b j e c t tracking, a l t h o u g h w e
do have a " h a t " t h a t tracks an ultrasonic
w a n d (Photo 3). Because o f t h e large
n u m D e r o f beacons in t h e ceiling, w e
s o m e t i m e s call it " t h e t h o u s a n d points
o f light." Research is needed t o d e v e l o p
l o n g - r a n g e trackers t h a t require far
-RoE.A-L ,,
lad P h O t O 3. " H a t " w i t h t h r e e o p t i c a l s e n s o r s t o t r a c k a n
ultrasonic wand
f e w e r modifications t o t h e e n v i r o n m e n t .
Perhaps t h e m o s t effective solutions will
be t e c h n o l o g y hybrids. For example, in-
ertial trackers have Infinite range, b u t
lose accuracy w i t h t i m e due t o accumu-
lated drift, occasional m e a s u r e m e n t s
f r o m several accurate b u t s h o r t - r a n g e
trackers m i g h t c o n t r o l t h a t drift. These
and o t h e r potential I m p r o v e m e n t s m u s t
be e x p l o r e d t o m e e t t h e s t r i n g e n t re-
q u i r e m e n t s o f a u g m e n t e d reality. [ ]
The optoelectronic tracker was partially sup-
ported by ONR contract N00014-86-K-0680,
DARPA contract DAEA 18-90-C-0044, and NSF
contract ASC-8920219.
COMMUI41CAT|OMSO~THIACMJu~y 1993/Vo1.36, No.7
References
1. Meyer,K., Applewhlte, H. and Blocca, F. A surveyof
position trackerS.Presence 1, 2 (Spring1992),173-200.
2. ward, M., Azuma, R., Bennett, R., Gottschalk, $. and
FUChS,H. A demonstrated Optical tracker with scalable
work areafor head-mounteddisplaysystems. In Pro-
ceedings of 1992 Symposium on Interactive 3D GraphiCS
[Mar. 29-Apr. I, CamPrldge,MASS.).Comput. Graprt.
1992,43-52.
CR Categories and SuPject Descriptors: 1.3.1 [Computer
Graphics]: HardwareArchltecture--fflree.dlmenslonal dis.
play,;; 1.3.7[computer Graphics]: Three-Dimensional
Graphics and Reallsm--vlrtual reality
Additional Key Words and Phrases: Augmented reality,
tracking
RONALDAZUMAIs a Ph.D.student at the UnlvesltyOf
North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Author's Present Aclclress: Uni-
versity of Norm Carolina,CB 3175ComputerScience
Dept., Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3175;emall: azuma@
cs.unc.edu
Sl