Sensor-fusion walking-in-place interaction technique using mobile devices

This paper describes a sensor-fusion-based wireless walking-in-place (WIP) interaction technique. We devised a new human-walking detection algorithm that is based on a sensor-fusion using both acceleration and magnetic sensors integrated within a smart phone. Our sensor-fusion approach can be useful for the cases when the detection capability of a single sensor is limited to a certain range of walking speeds, when a system power source is limited, and/or when computation power is limited. The proposed algorithm is versatile enough to handle possible data-loss and random delay in the wireless communication environment, resulting in reduced wireless communication load and computation overhead. The initial study demonstrated that the algorithm can detect dynamic speeds of human walking. The algorithm can be implemented on any mobile device equipped with magnetic and acceleration sensors.