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Researchers Can Make Your GPS 100x More Accurate Than Before

Soon you'll be able to run around in virtual reality without bumping into tables.

No matter how cool the game you're playing is, when you strap on an Oculus Rift, you look goofy. Part of that, of course, is the fact that you've basically got to stand still to avoid running into any non-virtual tables or walls.

Thus far, the solutions to this problem have been something even more goofy: Omnidirectional treadmills and absurdly complex harnesses have been floated on the market, but none have taken off, perhaps because they are very expensive, very large, and very clear signs that your VR obsession has gone too far. But a team at the University of Texas, Austin, thinks it may have found a way to allow you to move around with your VR headset, no fancy contraptions required. Todd Humphreys and the students in his Radionavigation Lab have made a standard smartphone GPS antenna 100 times more accurate using a new receiver and software that extracts what's known as "centimeter-accurate" data. Centimeter-accurate GPS is regularly used in higher-end geology systems, but Humphreys has apparently been able to snag this data using the receiver, which is hooked up to a regular GPS antenna. The plan, then, would be to attach one of these GPS antennas to your VR headset, walk around your yard, and allow whatever game you're playing to map it. The GPS would keep track of you as you ran around the yard, perhaps alerting you to when you were about to run into your fence. Or, even better, your yard would become a scale model of whatever world you were playing in. If you were to play a first person shooter in VR, you would actually see real world obstacles in VR as the GPS detects where you are. "Imagine games where, rather than sit in front of a monitor and play, you are in your backyard actually running around with other players," Humphreys said in a statement. "To be able to do this type of outdoor, multiplayer virtual reality game, you need highly accurate position and orientation that is tied to a global reference frame." Humphreys published the technical specs of his system in February in GPS World, but Tuesday, he released the video you see above. Of course, as with all things VR, there's no real timeline on when someone takes this baseline technology and integrates it into a commercial product. But it is another option, and, from the video just posted by the university, the more accurate GPS does seem to work as advertised. If VR doesn't work out, Humphreys says that his new GPS system could also be used by drones to deliver packages to certain areas of people's porches or to help them avoid obstacles. It's early days, but the tech does look promising.