A comparative analysis of attitude estimation for pedestrian navigation with smartphones

We investigate the precision of attitude estimation solutions in the context of Pedestrian Dead-Reckoning (PDR) with commodity smartphones and inertial/magnetic sensors. We propose a concise comparison and analysis of a number of attitude filtering methods in this setting. We conduct an experimental study with a precise ground truth obtained with a motion capture system. We precisely quantify the error in attitude estimation obtained with each filter which combines a 3-axis accelerometer, a 3-axis magnetometer and a 3-axis gyroscope measurements. We discuss the obtained results and analyse advantages and limitations of current technology for further PDR research.