Robust Attitude Estimation for Indoor Pedestrian Navigation Application using MEMS Sensors

Mahesh Chowdhary, Manish Sharma, Arun Kumar, Sankalp Dayal, Mayank Kumar

Abstract:	Pedestrian Dead Reckoning (PDR) based on MEMS sensors has been used in hybrid systems to increase the accuracy, availability and robustness of location systems. Low cost MEMS sensors such as accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetic sensor used for consumer applications are affected by bias drift and sensor noise. These sensor errors subsequently affect accuracy of displacement, heading, roll and pitch computations. The magnetic environment in indoor setting has time varying electromagnetic disturbances generated by various sources such as electrical equipments, computers, and mobile phones. Heading computations using only magnetic sensor, in such environments, will produce erroneous results unusable for pedestrian navigation application. Attitude computation using MEMS sensors in device such as mobile phone are affected by the complex ambulatory motion over and above the motion of center of mass of the body. Algorithm for attitude estimation presented in this paper produces good results for arbitrary sensor placement on the body, and is resilient to user motions like arm swing or trouser pocket. We have used a technique that adaptively changes the parameters of R or the measurement noise matrix and Q or the system noise matrix in extended Kalman filter using an S shaped function. As the final position accuracy largely depends on correct estimation of attitude, this paper focuses on improving the estimation of roll, pitch and heading in presence of time varying bias drift, sensor noise, varying external magnetic field and dynamic movement of body. The accuracy of heading, roll and pitch angles computation for high dynamic conditions is the focus area of this paper.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 25th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2012) September 17 - 21, 2012 Nashville Convention Center, Nashville, Tennessee Nashville, TN
Pages:	1658 - 1665
Cite this article:	Chowdhary, Mahesh, Sharma, Manish, Kumar, Arun, Dayal, Sankalp, Kumar, Mayank, "Robust Attitude Estimation for Indoor Pedestrian Navigation Application using MEMS Sensors," Proceedings of the 25th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS 2012), Nashville, TN, September 2012, pp. 1658-1665.
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