Inertial Pedestrian Navigation System Research Articles

Adaptive Mid-Stance Phase Observer-Aided Pedestrian Inertial Navigation System for Varying Gait Speeds

Adaptive Mid-Stance Phase Observer-Aided Pedestrian Inertial Navigation System for Varying Gait Speeds

An advanced adaptive algorithm driven by online blind noise level estimation for pedestrian positioning

An effective and universal positioning algorithm is essential for a highly reliable and accurate foot-mounted inertial pedestrian navigation system. Algorithm performance is significantly influenced by the accuracy of noise level estimation. This study introduces a novel blind noise estimation algorithm to reduce the impact of uncertain and variable system noise characteristics on positioning accuracy. The algorithm combines a quasi-population growth wavelet transform threshold with an adaptive window length adjustment strategy. Firstly, a quasi-population growth wavelet threshold function is employed to separate motion signals from noise and assess noise levels. Secondly, an adaptive sliding window strategy based on motion-noise correlation optimizing the balance between estimation precision and computational efficiency. These methods enable robust noise level estimation without prior knowledge and achieve real-time adjustments to the system noise matrix in Extended Kalman Filter of the inertial navigation system, thereby significantly enhancing navigation error suppression. The effectiveness of above methodologies has been experimentally validated.

Prior Kinematic Information Fusion for Pedestrian Localization With Toe-Heel-Shank MIMUs

With the development of the micro-electronic mechanical system (MEMS) inertial measurement units (IMU), the foot-mounted pedestrian inertial navigation system (PINS) based on the zero velocity update (ZUPT) is widely used. The systematic errors of MEMS IMU cause low precision of PINS at swing phase. However, the bio-mechanical constraints, which can be used to suppress the divergence of PINS, exist in lower limbs. In this study, three magnetometer and IMUs are fixed on the toe, heel and shank, respectively. The attitude of each segment is estimated by a MAHONY filter. The gait is defined as four successive phases. For each phase, the velocity and position constraints are constructed based on dynamic geometric constraint and Coriolis theory. Based on the perfect measurement method, the kinematic constraints, which are calculated by inertial data and attitude, are added into the observed equations. The noises are considered as additive Gaussian white noise. The linear Kalman filter is set to iteratively estimate the optimal positioning result. Several experiments with different walking velocities and trajectories are performed. The results show that the algorithm which is proposed in this study, greatly suppresses the velocity and positioning error.

A yaw correction method for pedestrian positioning using two low-cost MIMUs

In pedestrian inertial navigation system, the traditional zero-velocity update (ZUPT) method establishes a velocity constraint. Based on the Kalman filter algorithm, the velocity error is utilized to correct the position drift. However, the yaw error cannot be observed. In this study, two low-cost magnetometers/inertial measurement units (MIMUs) are tied to the foot and shank, respectively. To improve the positioning accuracy, two error correction methods are developed. Firstly, the yaw angle coordinate is chosen as a Kalman filter measurement vector. Secondly, a geometric constraint is proposed. It includes degree of freedom constraint, angle constraint, and position vector constraint. Finally, different indoor and outdoor experiments are employed to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. The average distance error percentage of the proposed method is less than 2%, and the heading bias is less than 5° within 5.05 min. Thus, the estimated paths are more in line with the actual trajectories.

An adaptive threshold method with error correction for pedestrian inertial navigation system

As an effective method for reducing accumulated errors in pedestrian navigation systems based on foot-mounted inertial measurement unit, the zero velocity update is widely used in global navigation satellite system signal rejection environments that require accurate zero velocity detection. However, the detection accuracy of the classical fixed threshold method is not satisfactory under complex gaits. In this paper, an adaptive threshold method with error correction is proposed to increase the detection accuracy without adding sensors. In this method, an adaptive threshold model based on gait intensity, which can dynamically adjust the zero velocity detection threshold under complex gaits, is established. Afterward, error correction is suggested to identify and correct misjudgments in zero velocity detection by analyzing the zero velocity interval in one gait cycle. We build an actual pedestrian inertial navigation system to evaluate the proposed method. The experimental results demonstrate that the average zero velocity detection accuracy of the proposed method under complex gaits of different people is 98.67%, and the end-to-end positioning error is about 0.53% of the total distance during long-distance movement.

HINNet: Inertial navigation with head-mounted sensors using a neural network

Human inertial navigation systems have been developing rapidly in recent years, and it has shown great potential for applications within healthcare, smart homes, sports, and emergency services. Placing inertial measurement units on the head for localisation is relatively new. However, it provides a very interesting option, as there are several everyday head-worn items that could easily be equipped with sensors. Yet, there remains a lack of research in this area and currently no localisation solutions have been offered that allow for free head-rotations during long periods of walking. To solve this problem, we present HINNet, the first deep neural network (DNN) pedestrian inertial navigation system allowing free head movements with head-mounted inertial measurement units (IMUs), which deploys a 2-layer bi-directional LSTM. A new ’peak ratio’ feature is introduced and utilised as part of the input to the neural network. This information can be leveraged to solve the issue of differentiating between changes in movements related to the head and those that are associated with the walking pattern. A dataset with 8 subjects totalling 528 min has been collected on three different tracks for training and verification. The HINNet could effectively distinguish head rotations and changes in walking direction with a distance percentage error of 0.46%, a relative trajectory error of 3.88 m, and a absolute trajectory error of 5.98 m, which outperforms the current best head-mounted Pedestrian Dead Reckoning (PDR) method.

A tri-IMUs pedestrian positioning system based on single-lower-limb kinematic constraints

Single-sensor zero-velocity-update (ZUPT)-aided pedestrian inertial navigation system (PINS) is a conventional method. However, the single-sensor systematic error still causes imprecise estimation of step length and high drift of orientation. In this study, three magnetometers and inertial measurement units are mounted on single-leg toe, shank, and thigh, respectively. Gaits are divided into two phases: stance and swing. Based on the biomechanical characteristics of a human lower limb, a velocity-position estimation algorithm is proposed. The positions of the three sensors are fused by dynamic geometric relationships, which are formulated through the natural lower-limb model and attitude estimation. A velocity-difference constraint is proposed to suppress the divergence of velocity, and Coriolis-based velocity correction is designed to observe velocities of the toe, shank, and thigh at the stance phase. A MAHONY-linear-Kalman framework separately estimates attitudes, velocities, and positions to reduce calculations. The proposed method is compared with foot-mounted, shank-mounted, and thigh-mounted ZUPT-aided PINS as well as a dual-sensor foot-to-foot algorithm through experiments. In the flat terrain experiment, compared with the errors of the Shank-mounted INS, the Thigh-mounted INS, the Foot-mounted INS, the Foot-to-Foot Constraint Method, the root mean squared error (RMSE) of the proposed method can be reduced by 40.34%, 71.85%, 29.53%, and 7.08%, respectively. In the slope experiment, compared with the other four methods, the RMSE of the proposed method can be reduced by 80%, 86.74%, 67.54%, and 61.86%, respectively. In the natural terrain experiment, compared with the other four methods, the RMSE of the proposed method can be reduced by 81.63%, 96.27%, 70%, and 60.87% respectively. The results show that the proposed method greatly suppresses the positioning and orientation errors in different scenes.

Recent Advances in Pedestrian Inertial Navigation Based on Smartphone: A Review

Indoor location-based service is a hot research topic whose application market size is expected to grow from <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\$ $ </tex-math></inline-formula> 41 billion by 2022 and <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\$ $ </tex-math></inline-formula> 58 billion by 2023. As a portable communication device, smartphones have inherent advantages (such as being an essential gadget in daily life, embedding various sensors, and having powerful computing and storage ability), which provides a great opportunity for human activity recognition and pedestrian navigation. Smartphone-based pedestrian inertial navigation systems (PINSs) utilize measurements from inertial sensors embedded in smartphones to reckon the pedestrian’s location. Compared with other indoor position technologies, PINS has the advantage of autonomy and continuity, and can achieve high-precision positioning in a short period. Though various PINS methods based on the smartphone have been proposed, up-to-date review papers that summarize relevant technologies, methods, and solutions of PINS are relatively less so far in the literature. This article aims to provide an elaborated, timely, and valuable survey of different infrastructure-free pedestrian positioning and navigation techniques, including pedestrian inertial navigation methods, performance evaluation, and applications. Finally, current challenges and future research trends are discussed. This work propels a better understanding of existing pedestrian inertial positioning methods. It is helpful for researchers to further design and develop more accurate and robust pedestrian positioning and navigation systems based on inertial sensors embedded in the smartphone.

A Pedestrian 3-D Position Estimation Method Based on Equality Constraint and Moving Platforms Correction Model

Inertial pedestrian navigation system (IPNS) has been broadly implemented for personnel navigation and positioning tasks without the preinstallation of infrastructure. However, the conventional foot-mounted IPNS that generally relies only on zero-velocity update (ZUPT) has serious heading drift and incorrectly judges foot as still phases when pedestrians take moving platforms (MPs; such as elevators and escalators). In this article, with the aid of six low-cost inertial sensors, a bipedal equality constraint method based on the Denavit–Hartenberg (DH) model is constructed to reduce heading drift. Then, an MP correction model that fuses detection, motion substates classification, and corresponding velocity constraint of MPs is proposed to achieve precise position tracking during elevator or escalator rides. Based on the equality constraint, the heading of the system is more accurate, which gives better play to the performance of the MP correction model. The robustness and effectiveness of the proposed algorithm are verified by multiple experiments in an office building, the positioning error in the rectangular 2-D experiment is less than 0.3%, and the horizontal positioning error and height positioning error in the comprehensive 3-D experiment are both less than 0.8%.

Foot-mounted Dual-sensor Single-board Pedestrian Inertial Navigation System Based on Position and Velocity Constraints

Foot-mounted Dual-sensor Single-board Pedestrian Inertial Navigation System Based on Position and Velocity Constraints

Pedestrian Inertial Navigation Based on Full-Phase Constraints of Lower Limb Kinematics

Due to the low-cost magnetic/inertial measurement unit (MIMU) is easily affected by noise, the positioning result is inaccurate. In this study, to improve the precision of pedestrian positioning, a lower limb constraint model is constructed based on the gait characteristics and biomechanical relationship. Dual MIMUs are strapped to the foot and shank of the same leg to form a pedestrian inertial navigation systems (PINS). Firstly, taking the MIMU mounted on the shank as the reference point, a new velocity constraint relation is established. Combined with kinematics and Coriolis theorem, the velocity of the reference point is calculated by two MIMUs, respectively. Then, the two calculations are optimized via a Kalman filter. Secondly, a geometric mode is built owing to the position relationship between the ankle and two MIMUs. Using cosine theorem, a correction method with complementary constraints is established. In addition, different from the traditional zero-velocity update (ZUPT), the velocity and geometric constraints are applied throughout the gait cycle. Consequently, the proposed constraint methods can effectively suppress the position drift. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm, several experiments with different trajectories and velocities are designed. The results show that the trajectories obtained by the proposed methods are closer to the actual situations.

A Feasible Model Training for LSTM-Based Dual Foot-Mounted Pedestrian INS

Deep learning (DL) has been confirmed as an effective method to develop inertial measurement unit (IMU) based pedestrian inertial navigation system (INS). Nevertheless, collecting data for training the DL models is always a challenge. Conventional motion capture systems are expensive and they can be applicable within a restricted range. The real time kinematic-global positioning system (RTK-GPS) has concerns of low data collection rate and outdoor usage limitations. Hence, this paper presents a feasible and easily deployable hand-push odometer platform (HPOP) that was modified from a conventional wheeled walker. The 30Hz HPOP speed information is arranged by combining the dual foot-mounted IMUs’ data for the training of long short-term memory (LSTM) models to develop a pedestrian walking speed estimator, where the training dataset contains 858,751 data items. Moreover, the Fick angle is further utilized with the estimated walking speed to form a pedestrian INS. In a 2m*2.6m rectangle path, the absolute path tracking error was 0.1024m; the RMSE of walking speed was 0.04768m/s; path walking distance error was 0.089m. In a 52.46m*8.16m basement corridor area, a 1.06m homing positioning error was investigated in a 136.6m round trip corridor path experiment.

Learning of Zero-Velocity Detection for Inertial Pedestrian Navigation

The detection of zero-velocity states is the vital prerequisite for zero-velocity update in the foot-mounted inertial pedestrian navigation system. The previous zero-velocity detector determines zero-velocity states by comparing measured inertial data with a calibrated threshold. The calibration of the threshold is inconvenient for this kind of the zero-velocity detector because the threshold is variable corresponding to different people and locomotion. The best threshold needs to be tuned corresponding to different situations. In essence, the detection of zero-velocity states is a binary classification problem. As the success of deep learning in in image classification and speech recognition, it is possible to design an adaptive zero-velocity detector based on it. A Siamese network is designed to learn the metric of distinguish zero-velocity states. This method can adaptively get the most likely correct results without threshold tuning. Experiments are conducted and results show that the matching degree is about 96.31% and the navigation accuracy can reach within 4m in 20min.

Lower Limb Model Based Inertial Indoor Pedestrian Navigation System for Walking and Running

Foot-mounted inertial navigation systems are suitable in GNSS denied environment for special tasks such as fire rescue, soldier, etc. These tasks are often accompanied by vigorous movements such as running and jumping, which is a challenge for the Zero Velocity Update (ZUPT) based inertial navigation system. As the speed increases, the inertial sensor drift increases, while the zero-velocity interval shortens, making the gait detection more difficult and resulting in a limited error correction. And as the motion intensifies, the stability of the system decreases. A multi-node inertial pedestrian navigation system based on the lower limb model constraint is proposed in this paper. Our first contribution in this paper is studying a simplified adaptive zero-bias estimation algorithm. The changes in velocity and angular velocity between two steps are used to estimate and compensate for the drift of accelerometers and gyroscopes. Our second contribution is proposing a novel gait segmentation method by lower limb motion statistics feature. A hybrid detection model of dual IMU is conducted to improve the accuracy of gait recognition. After that, the maximum distance inequality constraint is studied to correct the position error when the still phase is not available in vigorous movement. The final contribution is studying the chi-square fault detection method to improve the stability of KF. Multiple experiments prove that the proposed multi-node inertial pedestrian navigation system is effective in dealing with various challenging in walking, running, and hybrid motion pedestrian inertial navigation problems which could achieve less than 0.3% average distance error.

The Improved 3D Pedestrian Positioning System Based on Foot-Mounted Inertial Sensor

The foot-mounted navigation system based on Micro Inertial Measurement Unit (MIMU) can estimate the position of pedestrians. Zero Velocity Update (ZUPT) provides a solution for reducing cumulative positioning errors caused by the integral calculation of the inertial sensor. However, the low accuracy and high noise of the MIMU will greatly affect the measurement accuracy of zero velocity detector, which will lead to poor 3D pedestrian positioning accuracy. An improved generalized likelihood ratio test (GLRT) method is proposed by establishing adaptive thresholds at different gait frequency. The core is to dynamically adjust the detection threshold according to different motion states, so as to determine the constraint relation for detection. In addition, the drift of sensors and the accumulated error of position integration affect the accuracy of attitude and position. Therefore, an improved extended Kalman particle filter (EKPF) is proposed. The improved EKPF constructs the position constraint model in altitude direction by introducing barometer information. The new particle filter distribution function is constructed by constrained multi-source observation information, which makes the posterior probability distribution closer to the real distribution. In order to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of this method, the inertial pedestrian navigation system is established. The experimental results demonstrate that the improved GLRT method performs well in detecting the zero velocity point of the foot, and improved EKPF method reduces the positioning error by 69.25% and 53.57% compared with the EKF and PF, respectively. Therefore, the proposed method can improved the 3D pedestrian positioning accuracy.

A Novel Adaptive Zero-Velocity Detector for Inertial Pedestrian Navigation Based on Optimal Interval Estimation

In the foot-mounted inertial pedestrian navigation system, the zero-velocity update (ZUPT) algorithm is an efficient way to bound the inertial error propagation. Therefore, a reliable and accurate zero-velocity detector (ZVD) that adapts to all kinds of locomotion and scenarios plays a vital role in achieving high-precision and long-term pedestrian navigation. The classical threshold-based ZVDs are susceptible to failures during dynamic locomotion due to the fixed threshold. Recent machine-learning-based ZVDs need a huge amount of data to support the model training and their generalization is limited in new testing scenarios. In this paper, we propose a novel adaptive ZVD using the optimal interval estimation. Two filters are used to process the angular rate, aiming at determining a gait cycle. In a gait cycle, the acceleration is mapped to the search space by a special convex function. Based on the features of the data in the search space, a zero-velocity benchmark is calculated for the following interval estimation. The zero-velocity benchmark and the hierarchical iterative search are used to estimate the optimal zero-velocity interval (ZVI). The experiments demonstrate the effectiveness and adaptability of this novel ZVD.

Bias Compensation for UWB Ranging for Pedestrian Geolocation Applications

We present an effective bias compensation method to process none-line-of-sight (NLoS) and long distance line-of-sight (LD-LoS) ultra wideband (UWB) range measurement signals used to aid a pedestrian inertial navigation system (INS). The common UWB bias compensation techniques use machine learning methods to identify and remove the bias in the measurements. These techniques are computationally expensive and require extensive prior data. Here, we propose to use an algorithmic compensation technique that accounts for the bias by estimating it using the Schmidt–Kalman filter (SKF). Next, we exploit the positivity of the error in the UWB range measurements to propose a novel constrained sigma point based correction filtering that can be used atop the SKF for further improvement in the positioning accuracy of the UWB-aided pedestrian inertial navigation. Experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of our methods.

3D Reconstruction of Pedestrian Trajectory with Moving Direction Learning and Optimal Gait Recognition

An inertial measurement unit-based pedestrian navigation system that relies on the intelligent learning algorithm is useful for various applications, especially under some severe conditions, such as the tracking of firefighters and miners. Due to the complexity of the indoor environment, signal occlusion problems could lead to the failure of certain positioning methods. In complex environments, such as those involving fire rescue and emergency rescue, the barometric altimeter fails because of the influence of air pressure and temperature. This paper used an optimal gait recognition algorithm to improve the accuracy of gait detection. Then a learning-based moving direction determination method was proposed. With the Kalman filter and a zero-velocity update algorithm, different gaits could be accurately recognized, such as going upstairs, downstairs, and walking flat. According to the recognition results, the position change in the vertical direction could be reasonably corrected. The obtained 3D trajectory involving both horizontal and vertical movements has shown that the accuracy is significantly improved in practical complex environments.

A Wearable Inertial Pedestrian Navigation System With Quaternion-Based Extended Kalman Filter for Pedestrian Localization

This paper presents a wearable inertial pedestrian navigation system and its associated pedestrian trajectory reconstruction algorithm for reconstructing pedestrian walking trajectories in indoor and outdoor environments. The proposed wearable inertial pedestrian navigation system is constructed by integrating a triaxial accelerometer, a triaxial gyroscope, a triaxial magnetometer, a microcontroller, and a Bluetooth wireless transmission module. Users wear the system on foot while walking in indoor and outdoor environments at normal speed without any external positioning techniques. During walking movement, the measured inertial signals generated from walking movements are transmitted to a computer via the wireless module. Based on the foot-mounted inertial pedestrian navigation system, a pedestrian trajectory reconstruction algorithm composed of the procedures of inertial signal acquisition, signal preprocessing, trajectory reconstruction, and trajectory height estimation has been developed to reconstruct floor walking and stair climbing trajectories. In order to minimize the cumulative error of the inertial signals, we have utilized a sensor fusion technique based on a double-stage quaternion-based extended Kalman filter to fuse acceleration, angular velocity, and magnetic signals. Experimental results have successfully validated the effectiveness of the proposed wearable inertial pedestrian navigation system and its associated pedestrian trajectory reconstruction algorithm.

Step Detection for ZUPT-Aided Inertial Pedestrian Navigation System Using Foot-Mounted Permanent Magnet

A foot-mounted pedestrian dead reckoning system is a self-contained technique for indoor localization. An inertial pedestrian navigation system includes wearable MEMS inertial sensors, such as an accelerometer, gyroscope, or digital compass, which enable the measurement of the step length and the heading direction. Therefore, the use of zero velocity updates is necessary to minimize the inertial drift accumulation of the sensors. The aim of this paper is to develop a foot-mounted pedestrian dead reckoning system based on an inertial measurement unit and a permanent magnet. Our approach enables the stance phase and the step duration detection based on the measurements of the permanent magnet field during each gait cycle. The proposed system involves several parts: inertial state estimation, stance phase detection, altitude measurement, and error state Kalman Filter with zero velocity update and altitude measurement update. Real indoor experiments demonstrate that the proposed algorithm is capable of estimating the trajectory accurately with low estimation error.