Patent ID: 7973819

Claim:
A system for determining the position of a moving object, comprising: a transmitting unit which is located at a fixed position and transmits a visible optical signal modulated with position data including height data; a single-lens photographing unit which is provided on the moving object and photographs the transmitting unit; a data-acquiring unit which is provided on the moving object and receives the visible optical signal and acquires the position data from the visible optical signal; and a determining unit which is provided on the moving object and uses video data generated by the single-lens photographing unit, thereby determining the position of the moving object, wherein the determining unit comprises: a height-calculating unit which uses synthesized video data prepared by synthesizing first video data representing an image photographed by the single-lens photographing unit when the moving object is at a first position and second video data representing an image photographed by the single-lens photographing unit when the moving object reaches a second position from the first position, thereby calculating a height difference that the fixed position has in a synthesized image represented by the synthesized video data; a distance-calculating unit which uses the height difference, the data included in the position data and the distance between the first and second positions, thereby calculating a distance between a present position of the moving object and the fixed position; and a correcting/calculating unit which uses the distance calculated by the distance-calculating unit, a bearing detected by a bearing detector provided on the moving object and coordinates of the fixed position, thereby calculating the present position of the moving object.