An experimental study on a pedestrian tracking device

The implemented navigational algorithm of an inertial navigation system (INS), along with the hardware configuration, decides its tracking performance. Besides, operating conditions also influence its tracking performance. The aim of this study is to demonstrate robust performance of a multiple Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs) based foot-mounted INS, The Osmium MIMU22BTP, under varying operating conditions. The device, which performs zero-velocity-update (ZUPT) aided navigation, is subjected to different conditions which could potentially influence gait of its wearer, its hardware configuration etc. The gait-influencing factors chosen for study are shoe type, walking surface, path profile and walking speed. Besides, the tracking performance of the device is also studied for different number of on-board IMUs and the ambient temperature. The tracking performance of MIMU22BTP is reported for all these factors and benchmarked using identified performance metrics. We observe very robust tracking performance of MIMU22BTP. The average relative errors are less than 3 to 4% under all the conditions, with respect to drift, distance and height, indicating a potential for a variety of location based services based on foot mounted inertial sensing and dead reckoning.