Smartphone-based indoor position and orientation tracking fusing inertial and magnetic sensing

Equipped with magnetic field sensor and accelerometer, smartphones offer a novel method for visitors in indoor environments (for example museums). However, this kind of method suffers from accumulated errors over time and high cost of external infrastructures. In this paper, we develop an innovative and low-cost indoor navigation system using various sensors in smartphone. This system consists of an Improved Pedestrian Dead Reckoning (IPDR) part and an error-tolerant magnetic calibration part. Pedestrian position information could be deduced from a magnetic map matching algorithm, combined with IPDR algorithm applying distance estimation and heading estimation. This navigation system requires nothing but a smartphone and it is easy to implement in exhibition scenarios. The preliminary results of experimental measurements in practice present that our algorithm could achieve high accuracy with a promising potential for smartphone-based indoor positioning.