Abstract
In augmented reality (AR), audio markers can be alternatives to image markers for rendering virtual objects when an AR device camera fails to identify the image marker due to lighting conditions and/or the distance between the marker and device. However, conventional audio markers simply broadcast a rendering queue to anonymous devices, making it difficult to provide specific virtual objects of interest to the user. To overcome this limitation without relying on camera-based sensing, we propose a user-aware audio marker system using low frequency ultrasonic signal processing. The proposed system detects users who stay within the marker using ultrasonic-based object detection, and then it uses ultrasonic communication based on windowed differential phase shift keying modulation in order to send a rendering queue only to those users near the marker. Since the proposed system uses commercial microphones and speakers, conventional telecommunication systems can be employed to deliver the audio markers. The performance of the proposed audio marker system is evaluated in terms of object detection accuracy and communication robustness. First, the object detection accuracy of the proposed system is compared with that of a pyroelectric infrared (PIR) sensor-based system in indoor environments, and it is shown that the proposed system achieves a lower equal error rate than the PIR sensor-based system. Next, the successful transmission rate of the proposed system is measured for various distances and azimuths under noisy conditions, and it is also shown that the proposed audio marker system can successfully operate up to approximately 4 m without any transmission errors, even with 70 dBSPL ambient noise.
Highlights
Augmented reality (AR) is usually described as the interaction between a real environment and computer-generated virtual objects through allowing users to interact with the virtual objects through visual, auditory, or haptic sensory modalities [1,2]
An AR marker, which is an image marker based on a combination of coloring patterns and quick response (QR) codes, was used for indoor AR services, because the detection and recognition mechanism in this method was robust with commercial mobile hardware, even at a long distance [3]
It should be noted here that even though the proposed audio marker system uses a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) microphone and a speaker as sensors, it is free from privacy intrusion problems such as eavesdropping, because the low frequency ultrasound (LFU) frequency band used in the proposed system does not contain any information on the user’s speech or audio
Summary
Augmented reality (AR) is usually described as the interaction between a real environment and computer-generated virtual objects through allowing users to interact with the virtual objects through visual, auditory, or haptic sensory modalities [1,2]. An AR marker, which is an image marker based on a combination of coloring patterns and quick response (QR) codes, was used for indoor AR services, because the detection and recognition mechanism in this method was robust with commercial mobile hardware, even at a long distance [3]. This marker was used for establishing indoor guidance systems for the visually impaired [3].
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