Omnidirectional Pedestrian Navigation for First Responders

It might be assumed that dead reckoning approaches to pedestrian navigation could address the needs of first responders, including fire fighters. However, conventional PDR approaches with body-mounted motion sensors can fail when used with the irregular walking patterns typical of urban search and rescue missions. In this paper, a technique using shoe-mounted sensors and inertial mechanization equations to directly calculate the displacement of the feet between footfalls is described. Zero-velocity updates (ZUPTs) at foot standstills limit the drift that would otherwise occur with inexpensive IMUs. We show that the technique is fairly accurate in terms of distance travelled and can handle many arbitrary manoevers, such as tight turns, side/back stepping and stair climbing.