WHAT DOES 6-DEGREE OF FREEDOM (6-DOF) MEAN?
6-degrees of freedom, often shorten as 6-dof, is a term that indicates the freedom of movements of a rigid body in 3-dimensional space.
The body can change position with these transitions:
- forward/backward (surge – X asis),
- left/right (sway – Y axis),
- up/down (heave – Z axis).
These are translation in three perpendicular axes.
The orientation can also change, with a rotation about three perpendicular axes, often called:
- YAW (normal axis),
- PITCH (transverse axis),
- ROLL (longitudinal axis).
Any possible movement of a rigid body, simple or complex, can be expressed with a 6 DOF combination.
For example, imagine when a golf ball is hit by a bat: the complex movement of the bat can be censidered as a combination of different translations and rotations, as 6-DoF.
Dragonfly can provide the location data in the 6-DoF format.
DISCOVER
How Can The 6-DOF Data From Dragonfly Be Integrated?
Dragonfly is a Visual SLAM technology that provides the location of the device in 6-DOF format, as well as in WGS-84 (latitude, longitude, elevation). The API provides typically a JSON containing the location data, however we can customize the output format to address specific requirements.
The X, Y, Z coordinates measure the distance, in meters, from an “origin” having coordinates (0,0,0). You can imagine it to be, for example, the corner of a room, and the device is laying on the floor. This is the origin point: every movement that the device makes is calculated in meters, therefore, assuming that the device moves by 50 cm on the X asis, and elevates by 75 cm, the new coordinate will be (0.5, 0, 0.75).
The coordinates can also have negative values, always relative to the origin.
Dragonfly offers a centimeter level accuracy, and provides 6-DoF location data.
Dragonfly’s location can be integrated into custom applications, of course: the location can be used as a component for robots and drones autonomous navigation, or to track the location of moving machines, vehicles, forklifts, UAV…
The data provided by Dragonfly can be customized by our R&D team in order to fit different projects, and we are open to listen to your requests.
We can deliver ROS nodes upon request to integrate Dragonfly SLAM for ROS.