Ferdinand Packi

	Dipl.-Inform. Research Assistant
	Address:	Karlsruhe Institute of Technology Institute for Anthropomatics Building 50.20 Room 124 Adenauerring 2 D-76131 Karlsruhe
	Walk-in hours:	on arrangement
	Phone:	+49-721-608-45291
	E-mail:	Ferdinand.Packi@kit.edu

Academic Career

since 10/09	Research Assistant at the Intelligent Sensor-Actuator-Systems Lab, Department of Computer Science, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT).
02/09- 07/09	Graduation as Dipl.-Inform., University of Karlsruhe (TH), diploma thesis at the Intelligent Sensor-Actuator-Systems Lab: "Design and Implementation of an Embedded, Wireless, Acoustic Tracking System".

Research Interests

Signal Processing
Localization and Tracking
Embedded Systems Design
Robotics

Teaching

Supervising tutor of the laboratory Science Project: Pedestrian Tracking Using Multisensor-Supported Dead Reckoning im summer term 2012

Supervising tutor of the laboratory Science Project: Acoustic Tracking in Non-convex Indoor Environments im winter term 2011/12

Supervising tutor of the laboratory Science Project: Acoustic Tracking with Variable Landmarks im summer term 2011

Supervisor of the laboratory Natural Interaction in Telepresent Environments as part of the Software Development Laboratory in summer term 2011]

Supervisor of the laboratory Development of a Telepresent Computer Game as part of the Software Development Laboratory in winter term 2010/11]

Supervisor of the laboratory Development of an Editor for Handwritten Text as part of the Software Development Laboratory in summer term 2010] and winter term 2009/10]

If your are interested in seminar theses, laboratory or bachelor/master theses, feel free to contact me or just drop into my office any time!

Activities

International Conference on Information Fusion 2012, Singapore
- Co-organizer of the Special Session "Data Fusion Methods for Indoor Localization of People and Objects "

Bachelor/MasterTheses

Indoor Navigation and Tracking

Publications

Ferdinand Packi, Uwe D. Hanebeck,
Robust NLOS Discrimination for Range-Based Acoustic Pose Tracking

Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Information Fusion (Fusion 2012), Singapore, July 2012.

Author : Ferdinand Packi, Uwe D. Hanebeck
Title : Robust NLOS Discrimination for Range-Based Acoustic Pose Tracking
In : Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Information Fusion (Fusion 2012)
Address : Singapore
Date : July 2012

Abstract

Indoor localization is a field in research with many competing technologies
using different kinds of media. A common challenge faced by most
systems is dealing with Non-Line-of-Sight (NLOS) conditions. We are
addressing this issue with focus on sound in the frequency range
above 20 kHz, as we encountered severe occurrence of outliers due
to multipath propagation, by reflections, and from occlusion. The
proper discrimination of erroneous signals is of special concern
during initialization time of the tracking system. During run time,
the computationally demanding process can be spared, if motion is
modelled and stochastic filtering techniques are applied. This paper
depicts solutions for both cases, and demonstrates that a combined
use of static and dynamic localization methods delivers increased
robustness at an affordable computational cost.

Ferdinand Packi, Antonia Pérez Arias, Frederik Beutler, Uwe D. Hanebeck,
A Wearable System for the Wireless Experience of Extended Range Telepresence

Proceedings of the 2010 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2010), Taipei, Taiwan, October 2010.

Author : Ferdinand Packi, Antonia Pérez Arias, Frederik Beutler, Uwe D. Hanebeck
Title : A Wearable System for the Wireless Experience of Extended Range Telepresence
In : Proceedings of the 2010 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2010)
Address : Taipei, Taiwan
Date : October 2010

Abstract

Extended range telepresence aims at enabling a
user to experience virtual or remote environments, taking his
own body movements as an input to define walking speed and
viewing direction. Therefore, localization and tracking of the
users pose (position and orientation) is necessary to perform
a body-centered scene rendering. Visual and acoustic feedback
is provided to the user by a head mounted display (HMD).
To allow for free movement within the user environment, the
tracking system is supposed to be user-wearable and entirely
wireless. Consequently, a lightweight design is presented fea-
turing small dimensions to fit into a conventional 13"laptop
backpack, which satisfies the above stated demands for highly
immersive extended range telepresence scenarios. Dedicated
embedded hardware combined with off-the-shelf components
is employed to form a robust, low-cost telepresence system that
can be easily installed in any living room.

Ferdinand Packi, Frederik Beutler, Uwe D. Hanebeck,
Wireless Acoustic Tracking for Extended Range Telepresence

Proceedings of the 2010 IEEE International Conference on Indoor Positioning and Indoor Navigation (IPIN 2010), Zürich, Switzerland, September 2010.

Author : Ferdinand Packi, Frederik Beutler, Uwe D. Hanebeck
Title : Wireless Acoustic Tracking for Extended Range Telepresence
In : Proceedings of the 2010 IEEE International Conference on Indoor Positioning and Indoor Navigation (IPIN 2010)
Address : Zürich, Switzerland
Date : September 2010

Abstract

Telepresence systems enable a user to experience
virtual or distant environments by providing sensory feedback.
Appropriate devices include head mounted displays (HMD) for
visual perception, headphones for auditory response, or even
haptic displays for tactile sensation and force feedback. While
most common designs use dedicated input devices like joysticks
or a space mouse, the approach followed in the present work
takes the user's position and viewing direction as an input, as he
walks freely in his local surroundings. This is achieved by using
acoustic tracking, where the user's pose (position and orientation)
is estimated on the basis of ranges measured between a set
of wall-fastened loudspeakers and a microphone array fixed on
the user's HMD. To allow for natural user motion, a wearable,
fully wireless telepresence system is introduced. The increase in
comfort compared to wired solutions is obvious, as the user's
awareness of distracting cables is taken away during walking.
Also the lightweight design and small dimensions contribute to
ergonomics, as the whole assembly fits well into a small backpack.

Patrick Dunau, Ferdinand Packi, Frederik Beutler, Uwe D. Hanebeck,
Efficient Multilateration Tracking with Concurrent Offset Estimation using Stochastic Filtering Techniques

Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Information Fusion (Fusion 2010), Edinburgh, United Kingdom, July 2010.