Integration Of Inertial Measurement Unit Research Articles

A Wearable Personalised Sonification and Biofeedback Device to Enhance Movement Awareness.

Movement sonification has emerged as a promising approach for rehabilitation and motion control. Despite significant advancements in sensor technologies, challenges remain in developing cost-effective, user-friendly, and reliable systems for gait detection and sonification. This study introduces a novel wearable personalised sonification and biofeedback device to enhance movement awareness for individuals with irregular gait and posture. Through the integration of inertial measurement units (IMUs), MATLAB, and sophisticated audio feedback mechanisms, the device offers real-time, intuitive cues to facilitate gait correction and improve functional mobility. Utilising a single wearable sensor attached to the L4 vertebrae, the system captures kinematic parameters to generate auditory feedback through discrete and continuous tones corresponding to heel strike events and sagittal plane rotations. A preliminary test that involved 20 participants under various audio feedback conditions was conducted to assess the system's accuracy, reliability, and user synchronisation. The results indicate a promising improvement in movement awareness facilitated by auditory cues. This suggests a potential for enhancing gait and balance, particularly beneficial for individuals with compromised gait or those undergoing a rehabilitation process. This paper details the development process, experimental setup, and initial findings, discussing the integration challenges and future research directions. It also presents a novel approach to providing real-time feedback to participants about their balance, potentially enabling them to make immediate adjustments to their posture and movement. Future research should evaluate this method in varied real-world settings and populations, including the elderly and individuals with Parkinson's disease.

Real-time Gait Event Tracker (RGET): An Innovative Approach to Digital Human Modeling through Integration of Inertial Measurement Unit and Dynamic Feature Extraction

The advancement of digital human modeling technology underscores the importance of accurately representing human characteristics and behaviors using motion capture technologies. This paper introduces the Real-time Gait Event Tracker (RGET), an advanced method aimed at precisely detecting gait events via an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU), thereby supporting high-precision digital human modeling. RGET integrates planning techniques into continuous states and action spaces, utilizing first-order difference functions and sliding window techniques to effectively identify four key gait events: Heel Strike (HS), Toe Off (TO), Walking Start (WS), and Walking Pause (WP). The system efficiently manages IMU gait signal data through real-time queuing techniques and extracts dynamic features within time frames using positive/negative windowed first-order difference integrations. By adopting weighted sleep time methods and adaptive threshold decision rules, RGET accurately extracts gait event features from sequences. Not only does RGET support precise gait segmentation with an F1 score of 95.9%, but it also provides an innovative method for digital human modeling and its applications.

Dynamic rail wear measurement: integration of RTK GNSS, IMU, and laser

Currently, laser sensors are widely utilized in railway systems for monitoring rail wear. However, the lack or insufficiency of rail waist data poses a challenge to accurately match profiles and calculate wear. In this paper, we propose a novel approach for dynamic rail wear monitoring that comprises three major modules: a filtering methodology to smooth rail profile data, fine compensation to calibrate the angle distortion, and fast profile alignment. Initially, the AF technique and Kalman filter are applied to reconstruct the profile. This is followed by integrating real-time kinematic global navigation satellite system, inertial measurement unit, and laser to precisely correct the rail profile dynamic distortion. Additionally, genetic algorithms-least squares method is used for rapid determination of the R20mm center of the profile. Rigorous testing and trials have demonstrated that our proposed approach achieves precision as low as 0.03 mm with significant potential in dynamic rail wear monitoring.

Multi-Antenna Global Navigation Satellite System/Inertial Measurement Unit Tight Integration for Measuring Displacement and Vibration in Structural Health Monitoring

Large-scale engineering structures deform and vibrate under the influence of external forces. Obtaining displacement and vibration is crucial for structural health monitoring (SHM). Global navigation satellite system (GNSS) and inertial measurement unit (IMU) are complementary and widely used in SHM. In this paper, we propose an SHM scheme where IMU and multi-antenna GNSS are tightly integrated. The phase centers of multiple GNSS antennas are transformed into the IMU center, which increases the observation redundancy and strengthens the positioning model. To evaluate the performance of tight integration of IMU and multiple GNSS antennas, high-rate vibrational signals are simulated using a shaking table, and the errors of horizontal displacement of different positioning schemes are analyzed using recordings of a high-precision ranging laser as the reference. The results demonstrate that applying triple-antenna GNSS/IMU integration for measuring the displacement can achieve an accuracy of 2.6 mm, which is about 33.0% and 30.3% superior than the accuracy achieved by the conventional single-antenna GNSS-only and GNSS/IMU solutions, respectively.

Research on the technology of intelligent vehicle sensor positioning system in autonomous driving

In this comprehensive exploration of positioning and navigation technologies, we have delved into the intricacies of GPS (Global Positioning System), IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit), and VPS (Visual Positioning Systems) systems, shedding light on their unique attributes and applications. GPS, a global satellite-based system, offers precise positioning on a worldwide scale, although it encounters challenges in complex urban and environmental conditions. Its role in navigation and tracking is undeniable. IMU, characterized by accelerometers and gyroscopes, excels in delivering high-precision positioning over short durations, making it invaluable for applications in aviation, robotics, and virtual reality. However, it is susceptible to drift over time. Visual Positioning Systems (VPS), harnessing computer vision and visual sensors, provide remarkable sub-meter to centimeter-level accuracy when conditions are optimal. Their significance is particularly pronounced in indoor navigation, augmented reality, and robotics, although they may face challenges in less favorable environments. These technologies are not isolated but can synergize to enhance accuracy and reliability. GPS and IMU collaborate to compensate for signal disruptions, while GPS and VPS join forces to tackle urban complexities. IMU and VPS integration offer precise indoor navigation and augmented reality experiences, delivering impeccable positioning and orientation data. Ultimately, the choice of technology hinges on specific application requirements, encompassing accuracy, environmental considerations, cost factors, and the need for complementary systems. As these technologies advance, they hold the promise of revolutionizing navigation across various domains, from autonomous vehicles to immersive augmented reality environments.

Survey on Embedding Economical Autonomous Navigation System for Mobile Robots and UAV

Navigation has traditionally served the purpose of determining one's position, locating destinations, and charting a course towards them. It furnishes accurate details about the whereabouts of specific places or objects. Despite numerous advancements and enhancements in navigation technology, there have been ongoing discussions about its potential for autonomy. This suggests a scenario where navigation operates independently, without human intervention. Devices equipped with this capability comprehend their destination and chart the most efficient route to reach it. A crucial concept in this context is Visual Odometry (VO), which calculates the relative position between successive image frames. Likewise, the positioning of mobile robots relies on similar principles. However, a significant challenge arises over time as VO is susceptible to accumulating errors, known as drift. The Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU), which consists of accelerometers, gyroscopes, and magnetometers, is added to counteract this. These elements provide data that is more accurate and helps reduce noise. The integration of IMU with VO results in the creation of Visual Inertial Odometry (VIO). Furthermore, combining VIO with Global Positioning System (GPS) data through an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) enhances localization accuracy both locally and globally. Additionally, stereo disparity estimation is employed to generate a depth perception map for obstacle detection, converted into a 2D grid map of occupancy after. While a waypoint follower directs the robot or devices toward its intended objective, local route planning algorithms create interim waypoints to prevent obstructions.

Low-Cost, Triple-Frequency, Multi-GNSS PPP and MEMS IMU Integration for Continuous Navigation in Simulated Urban Environments

<h3>Abstract</h3> In this research, a next-generation, low-cost triple-frequency GNSS, microelectromechanical (MEMS) based inertial measurement unit (IMU), and a patch antenna was used to obtain decimeter-level accuracy in a suburban and urban environment. A unique combination of the low-cost hardware and software constraining was used to bridge the GNSS gaps in an urban environment to provide a continuous, accurate, and reliable position solution that is novel and has not been previously published. The low-cost navigation system demonstrates less than a decimeter-level accuracy in the presence of a sufficient number of satellites. During half a minute of introduced GNSS signal loss, the overall rms of the algorithm is 10–40% better than dual-frequency PPP with IMU, as the satellite availability reduces. The results obtained during partial GNSS availability indicate a significant step forward in the low-cost navigation area for applications like low-cost autonomous vehicles, intelligent transportation systems, etc. that demand a decimeter level of accuracy.

Loosely Coupled GNSS and IMU Integration for Accurate i-Boat Horizontal Navigation

Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) has been widely utilized as a navigation solution for a mobile vehicle, yet stand-alone GNSS is unable to achieve sufficient accuracy in some applications. For example, in aquatic environment, the accuracy position of Unmanned Surface Vehicle (USV) is affected by the wind, current, and waves dynamics. In this case, the integration of GNSS and Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) is an approach that can be used to support USV localization to achieve an accurate navigation solution. This study integrates GNSS and IMU using Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) to process loosely coupled integration. The integration results show that the estimated x-position is 0.3058 m accurately and the y-position has an accuracy of 0.2780 m. Then, the loosely coupled integration results of EKF were compared with Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF) simulation in the previous studies. The integration of GNSS and IMU using EKF produces a higher RMSE value of 2D position and attitude angle than UKF Scenario I. However, due to the smoothing process, EKF can provide a visually smoother trajectory than UKF, although it has a significant difference from the observed trajectory. On the other hand, the linear velocity estimated by EKF shows better stability compared to UKF in both Scenario I and II.

Coarse-to-Fine Loosely-Coupled LiDAR-Inertial Odometry for Urban Positioning and Mapping

Accurate positioning and mapping are significant for autonomous systems with navigation requirements. In this paper, a coarse-to-fine loosely-coupled (LC) LiDAR-inertial odometry (LC-LIO) that could explore the complementariness of LiDAR and inertial measurement unit (IMU) was proposed for the real-time and accurate pose estimation of a ground vehicle in urban environments. Different from the existing tightly-coupled (TC) LiDAR-inertial fusion schemes which directly use all the considered ranges and inertial measurements to optimize the vehicle pose, the method proposed in this paper performs loosely-couped integrated optimization with the high-frequency motion prediction, which was produced by IMU integration based on optimized results, employed as the initial guess of LiDAR odometry to approach the optimality of LiDAR scan-to-map registration. As one of the prominent contributions, thorough studies were conducted on the performance upper bound of the TC LiDAR-inertial fusion schemes and LC ones, respectively. Furthermore, the experimental verification was performed on the proposition that the proposed pipeline can fully relax the potential of the LiDAR measurements (centimeter-level ranging accuracy) in a coarse-to-fine way without being disturbed by the unexpected IMU bias. Moreover, an adaptive covariance estimation method employed during LC optimization was proposed to explain the uncertainty of LiDAR scan-to-map registration in dynamic scenarios. Furthermore, the effectiveness of the proposed system was validated on challenging real-world datasets. Meanwhile, the process that the proposed pipelines realized the coarse-to-fine LiDAR scan-to-map registration was presented in detail. Comparing with the existing state-of-the-art TC-LIO, the focus of this study would be placed on that the proposed LC-LIO work could achieve similar or better accuracy with a reduced computational expense.

Probabilistic Spatial Distribution Prior Based Attentional Keypoints Matching Network

Keypoints matching is a pivotal component for many image-relevant applications such as image stitching, visual simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM), and so on. Both handcrafted-based and recently emerged deep learning-based keypoints matching methods merely rely on keypoints and local features, while losing sight of other available sensors such as inertial measurement unit (IMU) in the above applications. In this paper, we demonstrate that the motion estimation from IMU integration can be used to exploit the spatial distribution prior of keypoints between images. To this end, a probabilistic perspective of attention formulation is proposed to integrate the spatial distribution prior into the attentional graph neural network naturally. With the assistance of spatial distribution prior, the effort of the network for modeling the hidden features can be reduced. Furthermore, we present a projection loss for the proposed keypoints matching network, which gives a smooth edge between matching and un-matching keypoints. Image matching experiments on visual SLAM datasets indicate the effectiveness and efficiency of the presented method.

Performance Evaluation of IMU and DVL Integration in Marine Navigation.

Global navigation satellite system (GNSS) spoofing poses a significant threat to maritime logistics. Many maritime electronic devices rely on GNSS time, positioning, and speed for safe vessel operation. In this study, inertial measurement unit (IMU) and Doppler velocity log (DVL) devices, which are important in the event of GNSS spoofing or outage, are considered in conventional navigation. A velocity integration method using IMU and DVL in terms of dead-reckoning is investigated in this study. GNSS has been widely used for ship navigation, but IMU, DVL, or combined IMU and DVL navigation have received little attention. Military-grade sensors are very expensive and generally cannot be utilized in smaller vessels. Therefore, this study focuses on the use of consumer-grade sensors. First, the performance of a micro electromechanical system (MEMS)-based yaw rate angle with DVL was evaluated using 60 min of raw data for a 50 m-long ship located in Tokyo Bay. Second, the performance of an IMU-MEMS using three gyroscopes and three accelerometers with DVL was evaluated using the same dataset. A gyrocompass, which is equipped on the ship, is used as a heading reference. The results proved that both methods could achieve less than 1 km horizontal error in 60 min.

Enabling robust and accurate navigation for UAVs using real-time GNSS precise point positioning and IMU integration

ABSTRACTAccurate navigation is required in many Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) applications. In recent years, GNSS Precise Point Positioning (PPP) has been recognised as an efficient approach for providing precise positioning services. In contrast to the widely used Real-Time Kinematic (RTK), PPP is independent of reference stations, which greatly broadens its scope of application. However, the accuracy and reliability of PPP can be significantly decreased by poor GNSS satellite geometry and outage. In response, a real-time four-constellation GNSS PPP is applied to improve the geometry in this work, and PPP is tightly coupled with an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) to smooth the position and velocity output, thus improving the robustness of the navigation solution. Experimental flight tests are carried out using a UAV in an open-sky area, and GNSS-challenged environments are simulated. The results show that the four-constellation GNSS PPP/IMU integration reduces the Root-Mean-Square (RMS) Three-Dimensional (3D) positioning and velocity error by 76.4% and 67.1%, respectively, in open sky with respect to the one-GNSS PPP. Under scenarios where GNSS measurements are insufficient, the coupled system can still provide continuous solutions. Moreover, the coupled PPP/IMU system can also maintain the convergence of PPP during GNSS-challenged periods and can greatly shorten the re-convergence period of PPP when the UAV returns to the open sky.

Kalman-Filter-Based Integration of IMU and UWB for High-Accuracy Indoor Positioning and Navigation

The emerging Internet of Things (IoT) applications, such as smart manufacturing and smart home, lead to a huge demand on the provisioning of low-cost and high-accuracy positioning and navigation solutions. Inertial measurement unit (IMU) can provide an accurate inertial navigation solution in a short time but its positioning error increases fast with time due to the cumulative error of accelerometer measurement. On the other hand, ultrawideband (UWB) positioning and navigation accuracy will be affected by the actual environment and may lead to uncertain jumps even under line-of-sight (LOS) conditions. Therefore, it is hard to use a standalone positioning and navigation system to achieve high accuracy in indoor environments. In this article, we propose an integrated indoor positioning system (IPS) combining IMU and UWB through the extended Kalman filter (EKF) and unscented Kalman filter (UKF) to improve the robustness and accuracy. We also discuss the relationship between the geometric distribution of the base stations (BSs) and the dilution of precision (DOP) to reasonably deploy the BSs. The simulation results show that the prior information provided by IMU can significantly suppress the observation error of UWB. It is also shown that the integrated positioning and navigation accuracy of IPS significantly improves that of the least squares (LSs) algorithm, which only depends on UWB measurements. Moreover, the proposed algorithm has high computational efficiency and can realize real-time computation on general embedded devices. In addition, two random motion approximation model algorithms are proposed and evaluated in the real environment. The experimental results show that the two algorithms can achieve certain robustness and continuous tracking ability in the actual IPS.

Cost-Effective Wearable Indoor Localization and Motion Analysis via the Integration of UWB and IMU.

Wearable indoor localization can now find applications in a wide spectrum of fields, including the care of children and the elderly, sports motion analysis, rehabilitation medicine, robotics navigation, etc. Conventional inertial measurement unit (IMU)-based position estimation and radio signal indoor localization methods based on WiFi, Bluetooth, ultra-wide band (UWB), and radio frequency identification (RFID) all have their limitations regarding cost, accuracy, or usability, and a combination of the techniques has been considered a promising way to improve the accuracy. This investigation aims to provide a cost-effective wearable sensing solution with data fusion algorithms for indoor localization and real-time motion analysis. The main contributions of this investigation are: (1) the design of a wireless, battery-powered, and light-weight wearable sensing device integrating a low-cost UWB module-DWM1000 and micro-electromechanical system (MEMS) IMU-MPU9250 for synchronized measurement; (2) the implementation of a Mahony complementary filter for noise cancellation and attitude calculation, and quaternions for frame rotation to obtain the continuous attitude for displacement estimation; (3) the development of a data fusion model integrating the IMU and UWB data to enhance the measurement accuracy using Kalman-filter-based time-domain iterative compensations; and (4) evaluation of the developed sensor module by comparing it with UWB- and IMU-only solutions. The test results demonstrate that the average error of the integrated module reached 7.58 cm for an arbitrary walking path, which outperformed the IMU- and UWB-only localization solutions. The module could recognize lateral roll rotations during normal walking, which could be potentially used for abnormal gait recognition.

Deep Kalman Filter: Simultaneous Multi-Sensor Integration and Modelling; A GNSS/IMU Case Study.

Bayes filters, such as the Kalman and particle filters, have been used in sensor fusion to integrate two sources of information and obtain the best estimate of unknowns. The efficient integration of multiple sensors requires deep knowledge of their error sources. Some sensors, such as Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU), have complicated error sources. Therefore, IMU error modelling and the efficient integration of IMU and Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) observations has remained a challenge. In this paper, we developed deep Kalman filter to model and remove IMU errors and, consequently, improve the accuracy of IMU positioning. To achieve this, we added a modelling step to the prediction and update steps of the Kalman filter, so that the IMU error model is learned during integration. The results showed our deep Kalman filter outperformed the conventional Kalman filter and reached a higher level of accuracy.

Tight Integration of INS/Stereo VO/Digital Map for Land Vehicle Navigation

This paper proposes a method for tight integration of IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit), stereo &lt;small&gt;VO&lt;/small&gt; (Visual Odometry) and digital map for land vehicle navigation, which effectively limits the quick drift of &lt;small&gt;DR&lt;/small&gt; (Dead Reckoning) navigation system. In this method, the &lt;small&gt;INS&lt;/small&gt; provides the dynamic information of the land vehicle, which is used to predict the position and attitude of cameras in order to obtain the predicted pixel coordinates of features on the image. The difference between the measured and predicted pixel coordinates is used to reduce the accumulated errors of &lt;small&gt;INS&lt;/small&gt;. To implement the proposed method, an Extended Kalman filter (&lt;small&gt;EKF&lt;/small&gt;) is first used to integrate the inertial and visual sensor data. The integrated solution of position, velocity and azimuth is then applied by fuzzy logic map matching (&lt;small&gt;MM&lt;/small&gt;) to project the vehicle location on the correct road link. The projected position on the road link and the road link azimuth can finally be used to reduce the dead reckoning drifts. In this way, the accumulated system errors can be significantly reduced. The testing results indicate that the horizontal &lt;small&gt;RMSE&lt;/small&gt; (root-mean-square-error) of the proposed method is less than 20 meters over a traveled distance of five kilometers and the relative horizontal error is below 0.4 percent.

IMU-바로미터 기반의 수직변위 추정용 이단계 칼만/상보 필터

Estimation of vertical position is critical in applications of sports science and fall detection and also controls of unmanned aerial vehicles and motor boats. Due to low accuracy of GPS(global positioning system) in the vertical direction, the integration of IMU(inertial measurement unit) with the GPS is not suitable for the vertical position estimation. This paper investigates an IMU-barometer integration for estimation of vertical position (as well as vertical velocity). In particular, a new two-step Kalman/complementary filter is proposed for accurate and efficient estimation using 6-axis IMU and barometer signals. The two-step filter is composed of (i) a Kalman filter that estimates vertical acceleration via tilt orientation of the sensor using the IMU signals and (ii) a complementary filter that estimates vertical position using the barometer signal and the vertical acceleration from the first step. The estimation performance was evaluated against a reference optical motion capture system. In the experimental results, the averaged estimation error of the proposed method was 19.7 cm while that of the raw barometer signal was 43.4 cm.

Bayesian Train Localization with Particle Filter, Loosely Coupled GNSS, IMU, and a Track Map

Train localization is safety-critical and therefore the approach requires a continuous availability and a track-selective accuracy. A probabilistic approach is followed up in order to cope with multiple sensors, measurement errors, imprecise information, and hidden variables as the topological position within the track network. The nonlinear estimation of the train localization posterior is addressed with a novel Rao-Blackwellized particle filter (RBPF) approach. There, embedded Kalman filters estimate certain linear state variables while the particle distribution can cope with the nonlinear cases of parallel tracks and switch scenarios. The train localization algorithm is further based on a track map and measurements from a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receiver and an inertial measurement unit (IMU). The GNSS integration is loosely coupled and the IMU integration is achieved without the common strapdown approach and suitable for low-cost IMUs. The implementation is evaluated with real measurements from a regional train at regular passenger service over 230 km of tracks with 107 split switches and parallel track scenarios of 58.5 km. The approach is analyzed with labeled data by means of ground truth of the traveled switch way. Track selectivity results reach 99.3% over parallel track scenarios and 97.2% of correctly resolved switch ways.

Upper limb motion tracking with the integration of IMU and Kinect

Upper limb motion tracking attracts attentions from both academia and industry due to its value in a wide range of applications. Although existing optical-based tracking techniques can provide accurate tracking results, the product cost and complexity keep them away from most daily life applications. Recently, low-cost inertial measurement unit (IMU) and Kinect techniques provide a feasible/economical solution for such trajectory tracking problems while either of them still has its own limitations. In this paper, we investigated how to fuse data from internal sensors of IMU, and fuse IMU data with Kinect in order to provide robust hand position information compensated for the limitations of those sensors. The calculation of position is sequentially achieved by three fusion strategies: double integration of IMU internal sensors, IMU internal sensor fusion with geometrical constraints and unscented Kalman filter (UKF) based fusion of IMU and Kinect. Experimental results show that the first two approaches suffer from drifting effects, while the proposed IMU and Kinect fusion method can provide drift-free and smooth results. Comparing with using Kinect alone, this approach is able to achieve better results in terms of both accuracy as well as robustness.

Attitude Determination by Integration of Multi-Sensors Based on Federated Kalman Filter

Micro inertial measurement unit integration storage test system is a typical multi-sensor information fusion system consists of microsensors. The Federated Kalman filter is applied to micro inertial measurement unit integration storage test system. The general structure and characteristics of Federated Kalman filter is expounded. The four-order Runge-Kutta method based on quaternion differential equation was used to dispose the output angular rate data from gyroscope, and the recurrence expressions was established too. The control system based ARM Cortex-M4 master-slave structure is adopted in this paper. The result shown that the dimensionality reduced algorithm significantly reduces implementation complexity of the method and the amount computation. The filtering effect and real-time performance have much increased than traditionally method.