A lost GPS signal may result in angry drivers, a wrong turn, or quarreling couples. In contrast, not having an accurate location on the battlefield can disrupt coordination and even result in lost lives. Thanks to a federal contract, scientists at the University of Utah have developed a “smart boot” with nanoscale sensors inside that help pinpoint a soldier’s location on the battlefield. The smart boot can help a military medical evacuation team to know a fallen soldier’s exact whereabouts, saving precious response time.
“This innovation overcomes the problem of lost GPS signals in places like Afghanistan where there is a lot of rugged terrain,” says Carlos Mastrangelo, professor of electrical and computer engineering. “The signal can be affected when a soldier walks through a mountain canyon, thick forest, tunnel, or an urban building. In addition, some enemies also have the ability to jam the signal.”
Currently, the military uses a technology called Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs) to track movement after signal loss, but its accuracy declines the longer one walks. “Right now, after a person walks for four hours, the standard equipment will drift off the correct location by about a half a mile,” says Mastrangelo. “Our technology will reduce that drift to just 30 feet.”
In the near future these "Smart boots" may help pinpoint a soldier’s location on the battlefield.
“The Department of Defense is very interested in navigational approaches that don’t use GPS or consume much power,” adds professor Darrin Young, an expert in low-power nanosystems. “Our wireless device consumes 100 times less power than the state-of-the-art technology.”
The team has been awarded $2 million from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop the boot sensors and will receive another $4 million over the next two years to reduce the signal drift to just a few feet after walking for an entire day.
Other potential users are firefighters, police response teams, or anyone who needs to know their exact location.
What has been a hurdle in development? “Circles,” says Mastrangelo. “The students testing the boots can’t just walk in circles to test accuracy. They have to walk in a random pattern around the university for four hours and it’s really hard to be random for that long.”
Both Mastrangelo and Young are USTAR researchers recently recruited to the U of U. They are faculty in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and are members of the Wireless Nanosystems research team. Their results are published in their article “Navigation via High-Resolution-Gait-Corrected Inertial Measurement Units” in the IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement publication.
