Increased error observability of an inertial pedestrian navigation system by rotating IMU

Abdulrahim, Khairi; Hide, Christopher; Moore, Terry; Hill, Chris

Abstract

Indoor pedestrian navigation suffers from the unavailability of useful GNSS signals for navigation. Often a low-cost non-GNSS inertial sensor is used to navigate indoors. However, using only a low-cost inertial sensor for the system degrades its performance due to the low observability of errors affecting such low-cost sensors. Of particular concern is the heading drift error, caused primarily by the unobservability of z-axis gyro bias errors, which results in a huge positioning error when navigating for more than a few seconds. In this paper, the observability of this error is increased by proposing a method of rotating the inertial sensor on its y-axis. The results from a field trial for the proposed innovative method are presented. The method was performed by rotating the sensor mechanically–mounted on a shoe–on a single axis. The method was shown to increase the observability of z-axis gyro bias errors of a low-cost sensor. This is very significant because no other integrated measurements from other sensors are required to increase error observability. This should potentially be very useful for autonomous low-cost inertial pedestrian navigation systems that require a long period of navigation time.

Citation

Abdulrahim, K., Hide, C., Moore, T., & Hill, C. (2014). Increased error observability of an inertial pedestrian navigation system by rotating IMU. Journal of Engineering and Technological Sciences, 46(2), https://doi.org/10.5614/j.eng.technol.sci.2014.46.2.7

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: May 7, 2014
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2014
• Deposit Date: May 21, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: May 21, 2016
• Journal: Journal of Engineering and Technological Sciences
• Electronic ISSN: 2337-5779
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 46
• Issue: 2
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.5614/j.eng.technol.sci.2014.46.2.7
• Keywords: error observability; inertial; low-cost; pedestrian navigation; sensor
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/997823
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5614/j.eng.technol.sci.2014.46.2.7