ATTITUDE ESTIMATION FOR PEDESTRIAN NAVIGATION USING LOW COST MEMS ACCELEROMETER IN MOBILE APPLICATIONS, AND PROCESSING METHODS, APPARATUS AND SYSTEMS

• US 20120136573A1
• Filed: 11/22/2011
• Published: 05/31/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 11/25/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Texas Instruments, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Texas Instruments, Inc.
• Inventors: Janardhanan, Jayawardan, Dutta, Goutam, Tripuraneni, Varun
• Granted Patent: US 8,694,251 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 701/512
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/1654 with electromagnetic compass
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/183 Compensation of inertial measurements, e.g. for temperature effects
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/185 for gravity
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/188 for accumulated errors, e.g. by coupling inertial systems with absolute positioning systems
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/20 Instruments for performing navigational calculations G01C21/24, G01C21/26 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 22/006 Pedometers

Abstract

A user-heading determining system (10) for pedestrian use includes a multiple-axis accelerometer (110) having acceleration sensors; a device-heading sensor circuit (115) physically situated in a fixed relationship to the accelerometer (110); an electronic circuit (100) operable to generate signals representing components of acceleration sensed by the accelerometer (110) sensors, and to electronically process at least some part of the signals to produce an estimation of attitude of a user motion with respect to the accelerometer, and further to combine the attitude estimation (750, α) with a device heading estimation (770, ψ) responsive to the device-heading sensor circuit, to produce a user heading estimation (780); and an electronic display (190) responsive to the electronic circuit (100) to display information at least in part based on the user heading estimation. Other systems, circuits and processes are also disclosed.

Claims

1. A user-heading determining system for pedestrian use, the system comprising:

a multiple-axis accelerometer having acceleration sensors;

a device-heading sensor circuit physically situated in a fixed relationship to the accelerometer;

an electronic circuit operable to generate signals representing components of acceleration sensed by said accelerometer sensors, and to electronically process at least some part of the signals to produce an estimation of attitude of a user motion with respect to the accelerometer, and further to combine the attitude estimation with a device heading estimation responsive to said device-heading sensor circuit, to produce a user heading estimation; and

an electronic display responsive to said electronic circuit to display information at least in part based on said user heading estimation.

2. The system claimed in claim 1 wherein said electronic circuit is operable to execute a search that electronically rotates said at least part of the signals and estimates a parameter of the signals related to variance, and to estimate a vertical direction and a lateral user direction where the parameter is substantially maximum and where it is substantially minimum respectively.

3. The system claimed in claim 2 wherein said electronic circuit is operable to produce an estimation of attitude of user motion with respect to the accelerometer based on an electronic operation that estimates direction of user motion substantially perpendicular to both the aforesaid vertical direction and lateral user direction.

4. The system claimed in claim 2 wherein said electronic circuit is operable to execute a vector-average on said at least part of the signals whereby to determine a direction related to gravity, and to use such determination to resolve an up/down sense of the vertical direction.

5. The system claimed in claim 2 wherein said electronic circuit is operable to detect a sense of a leading or lagging relation between acceleration in the vertical direction and acceleration in a forward direction, and to use the detected sense of the relation to resolve whether the user motion is forward or backward.

6. The system claimed in claim 2 wherein said electronic circuit is operable to monitor for a phase difference between acceleration in the vertical direction and acceleration in a forward direction, and to generate a signal indicating consistency or not of the monitored phase difference with a pedestrian walking mode for the processing.

7. The system claimed in claim 1 wherein said electronic circuit is operable to estimate accelerations in multiple directions and to perform a walking-context determination responsive to a comparison of such estimated accelerations to process in different motion monitoring modes depending on the comparison.

8. The system claimed in claim 1 wherein said electronic circuit is operable to execute a vector-average on said at least part of the signals to estimate a direction related to gravity, whereby to sense an orientation of the sensors with respect to the environment.

9. The system claimed in claim 8 wherein said electronic circuit is further operable to execute a search in a horizontal plane substantially perpendicular to the estimated direction related to gravity wherein that search electronically rotates said at least part of the signals and estimates a parameter related to variance, and then to establish a forward direction of user motion with respect to the accelerometer as a direction along which such parameter corresponds to a maximum variance, whereby to determine the forward direction with respect to the device heading.

10. The system claimed in claim 9 wherein said electronic circuit is further operable to estimate the attitude substantially equal to an angle between a plane including both a forward direction and the vertical and another plane including both the vertical and a sensor oriented for pickup towards the heading.

11. The system claimed in claim 1 wherein said electronic circuit is operable to filter the respective acceleration component signals prior to and filter coupled to the attitude estimation using a filter selected from the group consisting of:

1) sliding window correlation,

     2) integration,

     3) bandpass filter passing human motion frequencies,

     4) polynomial filter smoothing human motion frequencies.

12. The system claimed in claim 1 wherein said electronic circuit is operable to generate a signal representing a varying magnitude of acceleration, and to electronically correlate a sliding window of the respective acceleration component signals with the magnitude of acceleration prior to the attitude estimation.

13. The system claimed in claim 1 wherein said electronic circuit is further operable to operable to electronically estimate a direction related to gravity and electronically execute a search in a horizontal plane substantially perpendicular to the estimated direction related to gravity wherein that search electronically rotates said at least part of the signals and estimates a parameter related to variance, and then determines a particular direction of user motion with respect to the accelerometer as a direction along which such parameter is minimized.

14. The system claimed in claim 13 wherein said electronic circuit is further operable to estimate the attitude as a function of that direction along which such parameter is minimized.

15. The system claimed in claim 1 wherein said electronic circuit is further operable to perform a walking-step detection process and to operate said display to visually represent a path of user motion based jointly on the user-heading estimation and the walking-step detection process.

16. The system claimed in claim 1 wherein said electronic circuit includes a memory and said electronic circuit is operable to store into said memory a time-window of data responsive to the signals and representing approximately a walking-stride of data for such processing.

17. The system claimed in claim 1 wherein device-heading sensor circuit includes at least one unit selected from the group consisting of 1) electronic compass,) gyroscope, 3) inertial sensor, 4) magnetic sensor.

18. The system claimed in claim 1 wherein said electronic circuit includes a nonvolatile memory substantially defining at least some of the aforesaid operations and a processor circuit coupled with said nonvolatile memory for electronic execution of the operations defined by said nonvolatile memory.

19. An electronic circuit for use with a personal accelerometer, the electronic circuit comprising:

input lines for respective acceleration signals;

a nonvolatile memory having stored representations of instructions at least to generate a signals representing a vector average of acceleration and a varying magnitude of acceleration, and to electronically correlate a sliding window of the respective acceleration signals with the magnitude of acceleration; and

a processor circuit coupled with said input lines and programmably operable in response to the instructions in said nonvolatile memory for at least addition and multiplication and conditional operations, thereby to effectuate the instructions and to electronically process at least some part of the signals to produce an estimation of attitude angle.

20. The electronic circuit claimed in claim 19 wherein said processor circuit is operable to execute a search that electronically rotates said at least part of the signals and estimates a parameter of the signals related to variance, and to estimate a vertical direction and a lateral user direction where the parameter is substantially maximum and where it is substantially minimum respectively.

21. The electronic circuit claimed in claim 20 wherein said processor circuit is operable to produce an estimation of attitude of user motion with respect to the accelerometer based on an electronic operation that estimates direction of user motion substantially perpendicular to both the aforesaid vertical direction and lateral user direction.

22. The electronic circuit claimed in claim 20 wherein said processor circuit is operable to execute a vector-average on said at least part of the signals whereby to determine a direction related to gravity, and to use such determination to resolve an up/down sense of the vertical direction.

23. The electronic circuit claimed in claim 20 wherein said processor circuit is operable to detect a sense of a leading or lagging relation between acceleration in the vertical direction and acceleration in a forward direction, and to use the detected sense of the relation to resolve whether the user motion is forward or backward.

24. The electronic circuit claimed in claim 20 wherein said processor circuit is operable to monitor for a phase difference between acceleration in the vertical direction and acceleration in a forward direction, and to generate a signal indicating consistency or not of the monitored phase difference with a pedestrian walking mode for the processing.

25. The electronic circuit claimed in claim 19 wherein said processor circuit is operable to estimate accelerations in multiple directions and to perform a walking-context determination responsive to a comparison of such estimated accelerations to process in different motion monitoring modes depending on the comparison.

26. The electronic circuit claimed in claim 19 wherein said processor circuit is operable to execute a vector-average on said at least part of the signals to estimate a direction related to gravity, whereby to sense an orientation with respect to the environment.

27. The electronic circuit claimed in claim 26 wherein said processor circuit is further operable to execute a search in a horizontal plane substantially perpendicular to the estimated direction related to gravity wherein that search electronically rotates said at least part of the signals and estimates a parameter related to variance, and then to establish a forward direction of user motion with respect to the accelerometer as a direction along which such parameter corresponds to a maximum variance.

28. The electronic circuit claimed in claim 27 wherein said processor circuit is further operable to estimate the attitude by electronically deriving an angle in a horizontal plane and substantially equal to an angle between a plane including both a forward direction and the vertical and another plane including both the vertical and a device heading direction.

29. The electronic circuit claimed in claim 19 wherein said processor circuit is operable to filter the respective acceleration signals prior to and filter-coupled to the attitude estimation using a filter selected from the group consisting of:

1) sliding window correlation,

     2) integration,

     3) bandpass filter passing human motion frequencies,

     4) polynomial filter smoothing human motion frequencies.

30. The system claimed in claim 19 wherein said processor circuit is further operable to operable to electronically estimate a direction related to gravity and electronically execute a search in a plane substantially perpendicular to the estimated direction related to gravity wherein that search electronically rotates said at least part of the signals and estimates a parameter related to variance, and then determines a particular direction of motion with respect to the accelerometer as a direction along which such parameter is minimized.

31. The system claimed in claim 30 wherein said processor circuit is further operable to estimate the attitude angle using that direction along which such parameter is minimized.

32. The electronic circuit claimed in claim 19 wherein said processor circuit is further operable to perform a walking-step detection processing and to deliver signals that jointly represent a path of user motion based on a heading, attitude and step detection.

33. The electronic circuit claimed in claim 19 wherein said processor circuit includes a volatile memory and said processor circuit is operable to store into said volatile memory a time-window of data responsive to acceleration signals and representing approximately a walking-stride of data for such processing.

34. The electronic circuit claimed in claim 19 further comprising at least one unit coupled with said processor circuit and selected from the group consisting of 1) electronic compass, ) gyroscope, 3) inertial sensor, 4) magnetic sensor, 5) micro-electromechanical accelerometer.

35. A process responsive to an accelerometer and a device-heading sensor unit, the process comprising:

generating signals representing components of acceleration acquired from said accelerometer;

electronically processing at least some part of the signals to produce walking step signals and an estimation of attitude of a user motion with respect to the accelerometer, and further to combine the attitude estimation with a device heading estimation responsive to said device-heading sensor unit, to produce a user heading estimation; and

portably displaying a visual path of walking jointly based on said walking step signals, attitude estimation and device heading estimation.

36. The process claimed in claim 35 further comprising electronically rotating through various rotations said at least part of the signals, estimating a parameter of the signals related to variance, and estimating a vertical direction and a lateral user direction where the parameter is substantially maximum and where it is substantially minimum respectively.

37. The process claimed in claim 36 wherein the estimation of attitude is based on estimating direction of user motion substantially perpendicular to both the aforesaid vertical direction and lateral user direction.

38. The process claimed in claim 36 wherein the processing includes executing a vector-average on said at least part of the signals whereby to determine a direction related to gravity, and using such determination to resolve an up/down sense of the vertical direction.

39. The process claimed in claim 36 further comprising detecting a sense of a leading or lagging relation between acceleration in the vertical direction and acceleration in a forward direction, and resolving whether the user motion is forward or backward using the detected sense of the relation.

40. The process claimed in claim 36 further comprising monitoring for a phase difference between acceleration in the vertical direction and acceleration in a forward direction, and processing in different motion monitoring modes depending on the comparison.

41. The process claimed in claim 35 wherein the processing includes vector-averaging on said at least part of the signals to estimate a direction related to gravity.

42. The process claimed in claim 41 wherein the processing includes electronically searching in a horizontal plane substantially perpendicular to the estimated direction related to gravity wherein that searching electronically rotates said at least part of the signals and estimates a parameter related to variance, and then generating a forward direction of user motion at the rotation direction where such parameter corresponds to a maximum variance.

43. The process claimed in claim 42 wherein the processing further includes estimating the attitude by electronically deriving an angle in the horizontal plane between the forward direction and a sensor axis direction in the horizontal plane.

44. The process claimed in claim 35 wherein the processing further includes filtering the respective acceleration component signals prior to the attitude estimating using a filtering selected from the group consisting of:

1) sliding window correlating,

     2) integrating,

     3) bandpass filtering passing human motion frequencies,

     4) polynomial filtering smoothing human motion frequencies.

45. The system claimed in claim 35 wherein the processing further includes electronically estimating a direction related to gravity and electronically executing a search in a plane substantially perpendicular to the estimated direction related to gravity wherein that search electronically rotates said at least part of the signals and estimates a parameter related to variance, and then determining a particular direction of motion with respect to the accelerometer as a direction along which such parameter is minimized.

46. The system claimed in claim 45 wherein the processing further includes electronically estimating the attitude using that direction along which such parameter is minimized.