Week 4 Pedestrian Tracking by gr8dhage
Pedestrian Tracking with Shoe-Mounted Inertial Sensors
-Eric Foxlin
In this paper Foxlin describes a 3D position tracking system not based on GPS but instead using inertial sensors. The system is compact enough to be able to fit on a shoe and provides reasonably accurate tracking for short distances. It can also work indoors. The major challenge faced by Foxlin in getting this system working was that the gyroscopes have a small drift over time which causes the position error to grows cubically in time. The system developed uses the alternating still and moving stances of one’s feet to correct the drift error every 0.5 seconds. This provides the system with with an accuracy of ±0.3% over short distances. The author also combines GPS data with the inertial sensors to provide reliable tracking over short as well as long distances.
I especially liked the way the system can be used as an extension of GPS. GPS is a very mature, modern technology. However, it can get really annoying for short durations when your GPS device cannot catch a good signal(s). During such outages, a system like this one could be a nice complement to existing GPS devices. The localized nature of the tracking also opens up doors for some interesting applications.
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