A measuring device (10) for determining the location of one or more measurement points relative to the measuring device. The measuring device is arranged to be coupled to a non-contact distance measuring device or EDM (12) and one or more sensors (16) for determining the orientation of the EDM. The measuring device comprises an image capture device or ICD (20) operable to output digital images and being arranged to be coupled to the EDM such that the ICD moves in known registration with respect to the EDM. A controller (28) is arranged to receive data from the one or more sensors and the ICD. The controller is configured to: a) associate an image with the orientation of the EDM during exposure of the image; b) locate one of the measurement points within the image; and c) use the location of the measurement point within the image in combination with the EDM orientation to establish the direction of the measurement point with respect to the measuring device.

A distance measuring device according to an embodiment includes a first device including a first transceiver configured to transmit a first known signal and a second known signal and receive a third known signal corresponding to the first known signal and a fourth known signal corresponding to the second known signal, a second device including a second transceiver configured to transmit the third known signal and the fourth known signal and receive the first and second known signals and a calculating section configured to calculate a distance between the first device and the second device on a basis of phases of the first to fourth known signals, and the first transceiver and the second transceiver transmit/receive the first and third known signals one time each and transmit/receive the second and fourth known signals one time each, performing transmission/reception a total of four times.

A mobile camera system includes a camera affixed to a drone, a video transmitter that wirelessly transmits a video feed outputted by the camera, and At least one tracking tag that wirelessly transmits a location signal receivable by a tracking system to determine a drone position and a drone orientation of the drone. A local controller, also affixed to the drone, is configured to (a) wireless receive, from a camera controller, movement instructions derived from the drone position and the drone orientation, and (b) control the drone position and the drone orientation, based on the movement instructions, such that the camera maintains a perspective view of an object. The tracking system receives location signals to determine the drone position and object position. The camera controller determines movement instructions, based on the drone and object positions, and wirelessly communicates the movement instructions to the mobile camera system.

Administration and consistency of proximity beacon naming within one or more venues is improved by use of a mobile device to discover ranges of the beacons, and upon discovery, determining a location of a mobile computing device within the venue; receiving at the location by the mobile computing device one or more identifiers from one or more proximity beacons within range of the location; and updating by the mobile device at least one of the one or more identifiers according to a proximity beacon naming policy.

A system and method for determining the presence of an individual at a particular spot within a location preferably based on the strength of signals received from beacons assigned to the particular spot by a software application (App) running on an electronic device of the individual. In one embodiment, certain presence calculations are performed by the App. In another embodiment, the App forwards information regarding the received beacon signals to an electronic identification and location tracking system and the presence calculations are performed by the system.

A positional measurement system includes: a mobile robot including a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) signal reception unit that receives GNSS signals and calculates a position of the mobile robot based on the GNSS signals, a GNSS signal precision evaluation unit that evaluates positional measurement precision by the received GNSS signals, and a position control unit that moves the mobile robot to a high-precision reception position, where GNSS signals yielding positional measurement precision higher than a first threshold precision can be received; a relative position detection unit that detects a relative position of a target as to the mobile robot situated at the high-precision reception position; and a target position calculation unit that calculates a position of the target based on the calculated position of the mobile robot based on the GNSS signals received at the high-precision reception position, and the relative position.

A multi-tone multi-band tunable millimeter-wave synthesizer is provided. In some embodiments, the multi-tone multi-band tunable millimeter-wave synthesizer is configured to simultaneously generate multiple frequency tones for space-borne beacon transmitter for atmospheric radio wave propagation studies. The apparatus includes a comb generator, which puts out evenly spaced harmonic frequencies of the input signal, which are coherent, tunable, and the number of tones or combs is scalable over a wide range of frequencies. These harmonics or tones are amplified to the power level needed for radio wave propagation studies. The amplified signals are transmitted as beacon signals from a satellite to a ground receiving station.

A marker for burying adjacent an underground structure such that a location of the underground structure can be identified from above a ground surface. The marker comprises a housing, a self-orienting beacon retention device disposed within the housing. The self-orienting beacon retention device comprises a coil bobbin, and an inductance-capacitance beacon device carried by the self-orienting beacon retention device. A coil of the LC beacon device is disposed around an exterior surface of the coil bobbin. The self-orienting beacon retention device is structured and operable to orient the coil bobbin and the inductor coil in a desired orientation relative to a ground surface regardless of the orientation of the housing relative to the ground surface.

A beacon transmitter device (BTD.sub.1; 700; 900) is disclosed. The beacon transmitter device comprises a controller (710; 910) and a short-range wireless beacon transmitter (732; 932). The controller is configured to cause a first transmission (S12) of a short-range wireless beacon signal (BA.sub.1) by the beacon transmitter, the beacon signal identifying a beacon region. The controller is also configured to wait during a beacon delay time period (BDTP), and then cause a second transmission (S32) of the short-range wireless beacon signal (BA.sub.1) by the beacon transmitter. The beacon delay time period (BDTP) is sufficiently long to allow a short-range wireless beacon receiver device (P.sub.1), when being in a passive mode, being in range of the beacon region and having received the first transmission of the beacon signal, to receive and react (S34) on the second transmission of the beacon signal.

A system 100 to detect aircraft ground proximity including: a transmitter 110 for transmitting a radio frequency signal along an extended landing gear 20 of an aircraft 10, a sensor 120 configured to detect a parameter of the radio frequency, and a controller 130 configured to detect a change in the detected parameter on the basis of an output of the sensor 120, and to issue a landing signal when the change in the detected parameter meets a predetermined criterion. The predetermined criterion is indicative of a certain aircraft ground proximity.