• IEIE Transactions on Smart Processing and Computing
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2017

This paper proposes to improve the performance of a strap down inertial navigation system using a foot-mounted low-cost inertial measurement unit/magnetometer by configuring an attitude and heading reference system. To track position accurately and for attitude estimations, considering different dynamic constraints, magnetic measurement and a zero velocity update technique is used. A conventional strap down method based on integrating angular rate to determine attitude will inevitably induce long-term drift, while magnetometers are subject to short-term orientation errors. To eliminate this accumulative error, and thus, use the navigation system for a long-duration mission, a hybrid configuration by integrating a miniature micro electromechanical system (MEMS)-based attitude and heading detector with the conventional navigation system is proposed in this paper. The attitude and heading detector is composed of three-axis MEMS accelerometers and three-axis MEMS magnetometers. With an absolute algorithm based on gravity and Earth's magnetic field, rather than an integral algorithm, the attitude detector can obtain an absolute attitude and heading estimation without drift errors, so it can be used to adjust the attitude and orientation of the strap down system. Finally, we verify (by both formula analysis and from test results) that the accumulative errors are effectively eliminated via this hybrid scheme.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.345-354
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• 2019

The 3D position of pedestrians is a physical quantity used in various fields, such as automotive navigation and augmented reality. An inertial navigation system (INS) based pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR), hereafter INS-PDR, estimates the relative position of pedestrians using an inertial measurement unit (IMU). Since an INS-PDR integrates the accelerometer signal twice, cumulative errors occur and cause a rapid increase in drifts. Various correction methods have been proposed to reduce drifts. For example, one of the most commonly applied correction method is the zero velocity update (ZUPT). This study investigated the characteristics of the existing INS-PDR methods based on shoe-mounted IMU and compared the estimation performances under various conditions. Four methods were chosen: (i) altitude correction (AC); (ii) step length correction (SLC); (iii) advanced heuristic drift elimination (AHDE); and (iv) magnetometer-based heading correction (MHC). Experimental results reveal that each of the correction methods shows condition-sensitive performance, that is, each method performs better under the test conditions for which the method was developed than it does under other conditions. Nevertheless, AC and AHDE performed better than the SLC and MHC overall. The AC and AHDE methods were complementary to each other, and a combination of the two methods yields better estimation performance.