A step-wise algorithm for heading estimation via a smartphone

In order to improve the performance of the indoor localization system, the fusion of multi-source data is a common approach. For example, one can improve the WiFi localization accuracy on smartphones by combining pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR) results obtained through inertial sensors embedded in smartphones. Though obvious improvement in localization can be achieved, the existing methods do not sufficiently exploit the advantages of two data sources. To be specific, the existing studies directly fuse WiFi localization results and PDR results at a high level, i.e., the final coordinates of the WiFi localization system integrate with the final coordinates of PDR by certain algorithms, but ignores their relationship at a low level, i.e, the heading of the PDR , not its location results, is improved by the help of the WiFi localization. In addition, it is acknowledged that the pedestrian heading is the major source determining the performance of PDR. Therefore, this paper proposes to design a novel pedestrian heading estimation by fusing PDR and WiFi at a low level. Different from the traditional method, which employs a magnetometer to eliminate the drifts of a gyroscope, the method utilizes only the gyroscope of a smartphone for the heading estimation and relies on the WiFi localization trajectory in the fusion to compensate for the drift errors of the gyroscope-based heading estimation. In our algorithm, firstly, a pedestrian's activities trajectory is segmented into several straight paths with the help of the gyroscope of a smartphone. Secondly, the WiFi fingerprint localization coordinates falling into the time window of each straight path are fitted by the least-squares linear regression method. Lastly, the deviations of the gyroscope heading estimation of the smartphone when pedestrians walk in a straight direction are mitigated using the fitting slope obtained by the WiFi localization. Extensive experimental results demonstrate that our proposed algorithm can efficiently estimate the heading of pedestrians, and effectively reduce the cumulative errors of the gyroscope-based heading estimation using smartphones. In our experiments, the average error of the heading for pedestrians in 294 steps was reduced from 24.3 degrees to 1.22 degrees. Not requiring a magnetometer, our algorithm can reduce the drift errors of the heading estimation of pedestrians, achieve the deeper fusion of multi-source data in the fusion of WiFi and PDR, and potentially improves the endurance of smartphones.

Accurate indoor localization estimation has important social and commercial values, such as indoor location services and pedestrian retention times. Acoustic-based methods can achieve high localization accuracies in specific scenarios with special equipment; however, it is a challenge to obtain accurate localization with general equipment in indoor environments. To solve this problem, we propose a novel fusion CHAN and the improved pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR) indoor localization system (CHAN-IPDR-ILS). In this system, we propose a step length estimation method that adds the previous two steps for extracting more accurate information to estimate the current step length. The maximum influence factor is set for the previous two steps to ensure the importance of the current step length. We also propose a heading direction correction method to mitigate the errors in sensor data. Finally, pedestrian localization is achieved using a motion model with acoustic estimation and dynamic improved PDR estimation. In the fusion localization, the threshold and confidence level of the distance between estimation base-acoustic and improved PDR estimation are set to mitigate accidental and cumulative errors. The experiments were performed at trial sites with different users, devices, and scenarios, and experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method can achieve a higher accuracy compared with the state-of-the-art methods. The proposed fusion localization system manages equipment heterogeneity and provides generality and flexibility with different devices and scenarios at a low cost.

The demand for pedestrian navigation has increased along with the rapid progress in mobile and wearable devices. This study develops an accurate and usable Step Length Estimation (SLE) method for a Pedestrian Dead Reckoning (PDR) system with features including a wide range of step lengths, a self-contained system, and real-time computing, based on the multi-sensor fusion and Fuzzy Logic (FL) algorithms. The wide-range SLE developed in this study was achieved by using a knowledge-based method to model the walking patterns of the user. The input variables of the FL are step strength and frequency, and the output is the estimated step length. Moreover, a waist-mounted sensor module has been developed using low-cost inertial sensors. Since low-cost sensors suffer from various errors, a calibration procedure has been utilized to improve accuracy. The proposed PDR scheme in this study demonstrates its ability to be implemented on waist-mounted devices in real time and is suitable for the indoor and outdoor environments considered in this study without the need for map information or any pre-installed infrastructure. The experiment results show that the maximum distance error was within 1.2% of 116.51 m in an indoor environment and was 1.78% of 385.2 m in an outdoor environment.

Many studies utilize the signal strength of short-range radio systems (such as WiFi, ultrasound and infrared) to build a radio map for indoor localization, by deploying a large number of beacon nodes within a building. The drawback of such an infrastructure-based approach is that the deployment and calibration of the system are costly and labor-intensive. Some prior studies proposed the use of Pedestrian Dead Reckoning (PDR) for indoor localization, which does not require the deployment of beacon nodes. In a PDR system, a small number of sensors are put on the pedestrian. These sensors (such as a G-sensor and gyroscope) are used to estimate the distance and direction that a user travels. The effectiveness of a PDR system lies in its success in accurately estimating the user's moving distance and direction. In this work, we propose a novel waist-mounted based PDR that can measure the user's step lengths with a high accuracy. We utilize vertical acceleration of the body to calculate the user's change in height during walking. Based on the Pythagorean Theorem, we can then estimate each step length using this data. Furthermore, we design a map matching algorithm to calibrate the direction errors from the gyro using building floor plans. The results of our experiment show that we can achieve about 98.26% accuracy in estimating the user's walking distance, with an overall location error of about 0.48 m.

In recent years pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR) has been a popular indoor localization technique that takes advantage of inertial navigation sensors (INS) of smartphones due to its availability. Despite the convenience of INS, noise has been a recurring problem in PDR which encourages many researches on noise filtering. This paper proposes a model that utilizes empirical mode decomposition (EMD) as the noise filter. EMD is an unconventional filter being applied in PDR to remove noise by processing the raw signal before implementing step counts, step lengths and heading estimation. The experiment made using the proposed model was able to perform the standard PDR technique without overlaps in heading estimation.

With the widespread adoption of smart mobile devices, smartphone-based indoor positioning technology has become a significant area of research. This study proposes a collaborative adaptive multisource data fusion method for indoor positioning, utilizing the inherent multisensor capabilities of smartphones. In the offline phase, a multilayer perceptron (MLP) is trained using collected Wi-Fi fingerprint data. Specifically, we recorded 114 fingerprint locations in Scenario 1 and 99 in Scenario 2, each containing 20000 fingerprint datasets. During the online phase, the system collects real-time Wi-Fi fingerprint data and matches it against the trained dataset. Subsequently, the user’s step length and direction data are integrated into a pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR) algorithm to estimate positions within complex indoor environments. Finally, we apply an adaptive extended Kalman filter (AEKF), which adjusts weights to further improve positioning accuracy. Experimental results demonstrate that the AEKF method reduces root-mean-square errors (RMSEs) to 0.763 and 0.884 m in scenarios with different complexities, enhancing accuracy by 10.13% and 30.17% compared with the traditional EKF methods. Comparative analysis with mainstream algorithms further highlights the advantages of AEKF, achieving maximum accuracy improvements of up to 36.54%. These findings underscore the effectiveness of our approach in advancing indoor positioning technology for mobile applications, offering practicality and cost-effectiveness without requiring additional hardware.

This paper provides a hybrid approach between Wi-Fi and pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR) for the iPhones in indoor environments, and addresses the following two problems. First, since Apple Inc. no longer provides public information about currently-connected Wi-Fi (e.g., service set identifier, received signal strength and channel), Wi-Fi based pedestrian tracking apps that run on the iPhones are more restricted compared to other ones on the Android platforms. Second, even the PDR approach provides such a great way for self-localization, it suffers from accumulated errors of inertial sensors embedded in the smartphones. We propose a conversion function from a Wi-Fi status value to a proximity for the localization purpose. Then, a mobile iPhone collects mobility information from inertial measurements unit (IMU), inputs to the PDR, and combines with Wi-Fi proximity in order to perform accurate self-localization and tracking. Moreover, we improve the PDR by reducing drifting effects caused by the IMU biases. Experiment results show that the proposed scheme is effective and has low complexity, while bringing the benefits from smartphone IMU.

The Global Positioning System (GPS) is widely applied for outdoor positioning. However, GPS signals may degrade in an indoor environment. A nursing cart with a stable and accurate indoor positioning system inside is highly demanded in the hospital. The cart can be used for tracking the employees, or positioning movable medical devices. In this paper, we propose a Pedestrian Dead Reckoning (PDR) -based indoor positioning system with iBeacon calibrations. The proposed system can be implemented in resource- limited embedded device. To evaluate the property of the proposed system, real experiments under indoor environments have been conducted. The experimental results showed the effectiveness of the proposed approach. We also compared the impact of the number of iBeacons on positioning accuracy.

In the cloud age, it is quite easy to collect sensory data from smartphones. With these sensory data, it is desired to provide various kinds of applications to serve the user. In this research, we aim at developing an indoor navigation system on smartphone using solely smartphone sensory data. There are many researches on indoor localization and navigation in the literature. Nevertheless, environmental sensors and/or wearable sensors are usually needed. This can be costly and inconvenient. In this paper, we propose a smartphone indoor localization system using only accelerometer and gyroscope data from the smartphone. The Pedestrian Dead Reckoning (PDR) approach is used to build this system. The PDR approach is simple and efficient though seems traditional. The major weakness of the PDR is that the estimation error would accumulate over time. Thus we propose to add so-called calibration marks which look like short arrows and are placed on both the floor plan and the ground. To use the system, the user first finds a calibration mark on the ground, stands on it and faces the right direction. He/she then moves the android icon (representing the user) on top of the calibration mark on the floor plan on the smartphone. When the user starts to move, the android icon also moves on the floor plan following the real-time estimation of step length and moving direction change for each step from accelerometer and gyroscope data. This is a prototype of an indoor navigation system that can become fully functional after an optimal path planning module is included. Experimental results of estimated walking trace tests show high accuracy. The system is promising and useful as long as a floor plan and calibration marks are built in advance.

Complementary data are necessary to bind the positioning error growth of Pedestrian Dead Reckoning (PDR). In this paper, absolute position updates are made possible with the online detection of different types of points of interest (POIs) located on the map. The POIs are selected depending on specific motion patterns which are associated to absolute locations on the map. To create the POIs database, the correlation between pedestrian motion and different map locations is first studied and the outcome is a typology of POIs. A K-NN (K nearest neighbors) algorithm is used to train different motion modes, which are further exploited for the detection of POIs in order to update the PDR algorithm with position data. Experimental assessment of the POI-based PDR calibration is conducted in both outdoor and indoor spaces with a focus on the transition between both environments. 90% of the time, motion is correctly classified and the PDR position is corrected with an accuracy that depends on POIs features (width of corridor/door, staircase size…). Therefore, the approach is found to be promising for enhancing PDR positioning using only map data.

Technology progression in the last decades leads to many smartphone advancements, such as embedding variety of sensors for various measurement and applications. Positioning sensors (Accelerometer, Gyroscope, and Magnetometer) are one of the significant developments. Besides this, indoor positioning services on smartphones are the main advantage of these sensors. There are many indoor positioning applications, for instance; indoor navigation, asset tracking, controlling in warehouse, rescue operation, and entertainment applications. Nevertheless, precise position information through current positioning techniques is the main issue of these applications. The pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR) technique is one of the techniques in which the integration of onboard sensors is used for locating smartphones. Estimated distance, heading, and typical speed can be measured to determine the estimated position of the smartphone via using the PDR technique. The PDR technique offers a low positioning accuracy due to an existing unpredictable error of the embedded sensors. To solve this issue, fusing multi-sensors measurements is proposed, in this paper, to reduce the existing sensors drifts and errors. Further, the sensors' measurements with the previously estimated position are fused by using KALMAN Filter to determine the current location of the smartphone in each step of walking with higher accuracy. The obtained positioning accuracy through the proposed approach and based on trial experiments is 2 meters, which is equivalent to 10% improvement in comparison with state of the art.

Indoor localization using the magnetic fingerprint collected by the embedded sensors of smartphone has been under constant improvement with the widespread popularity of the smartphone. Most of the current systems rely on the Particle Filter (PF) or the Kalman Filter (KF) to combine the Pedestrian Dead Reckoning (PDR) with the magnetic or WiFi fingerprint for improving their accuracy. In this paper, a system using the PDR and the magnetic fingerprint is proposed for indoor localization, which is based on the combination of the Particle Filter (PF) and the Extend Kalman Filter (EKF). The system includes the Pedestrian Dead Reckoning (PDR) module and the magnetic fingerprint matching module. In particular, the hybrid indoor positioning algorithm which combines the Particle Filter (PF) and the Extend Kalman Filter (EKF) is proposed in the magnetic fingerprint matching module for the fusion of the results of the Pedestrian Dead Reckoning module and the magnetic fingerprint. This hybrid indoor positioning algorithm is the key component which can reduce the computation of the Particle Filter effectively and solve the inherent blindness and particles degeneration problem. The obtained results in the real scenarios show that our fusion system achieves better results than the widely adopted system in which the Particle Filter (PF) or the Kalman Filter (KF) is used. The evaluation shows the system achieves a localization accuracy about 1-2m on average in a large building.

Indoor localization has become a popular topic in recent years. While self-contained pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR) systems can be conveniently implemented on a smartphone with built-in inertial sensors for indoor localization, the error of the estimated position for a PDR system can accumulate quickly and results in an unacceptable position accuracy. To address this issue, we propose the collaborative pedestrian dead reckoning (CPDR) system. The main idea of the CPDR system is when users are near to each other, we can leverage the proximity information to improve their estimated positions by means of the opportunistic Kalman filter. In addition, the backward correction scheme is used to improve the accuracy of user's trajectory. To evaluate the CPDR system, a prototype is implemented on Apple's iPhone 5. The experiment results show that the CPDR system achieves a better position accuracy than the raw PDR system.

Pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR) is the critical component in indoor pedestrian tracking and navigation services. While most of the recent PDR solutions exploit in-built inertial sensors in smartphones for next step estimation, due to measurement errors and sensing drift, the accuracy of walking direction, step detection, and step length estimation cannot be guaranteed, leading to large accumulative tracking errors. In this paper, we propose a radar-assisted PDR scheme, called RadarPDR, which integrates a frequency-modulation continuous-wave (FMCW) radar to assist the inertial sensors-based PDR. We first establish a segmented wall distance calibration model to deal with the radar ranging noise caused by irregular indoor building layouts and fuse wall distance estimation with acceleration and azimuth signals measured by the inertial sensors of a smartphone. We also propose a hierarchical particle filter(PF) together with an extended Kalman filter for position and trajectory adjustment. Experiments have been conducted in practical indoor scenarios. Results demonstrate that the proposed RadarPDR is efficient and stable and outperforms the widely used inertial sensors-based PDR scheme.

Step detection for smartphones plays an important role in the pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR) for indoor positioning. Aiming at the problem of low step detection accuracy of smartphones in complex unconstrained states in PDR, smartphone-based unconstrained step detection method fusing a variable sliding window and an adaptive threshold is proposed. In this method, the dynamic updating algorithm of a peak threshold is developed, and the minimum peak value filtered after a sliding window filter is used as the adaptive peak threshold, which solves the problem that the peak threshold of different motion states is difficult to update adaptively. Then, a variable sliding window collaborative time threshold method is proposed, which solves the problem that the adjacent windows cannot be contacted, and the initial peak and the end peak are difficult to accurately identify. To evaluate the performance of the proposed unconstrained step detection algorithm, 50 experiments in constrained and unconstrained states are conducted by 25 volunteers holding 21 different types of smartphones. Experimental results show: The average step counting accuracy of the proposed unconstrained step detection algorithm is over 98%. Compared with the open source program Stepcount, the average step counting accuracy of the proposed algorithm is improved by 10.0%. The smartphone-based unconstrained step detection fusing a variable sliding window and an adaptive threshold has a strong ability to adapt to complex unconstrained states, and the average step counting accuracy rate is only 0.6% lower than that of constrained states. This algorithm has a wide audience and is friendly for different genders and smartphones with different prices.