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Inertial orientation tracker having gradual automatic drift compensation for tracking human head and other similarly sized body

  • US 6,361,507 B1
  • Filed: 04/05/2000
  • Issued: 03/26/2002
  • Est. Priority Date: 06/16/1994
  • Status: Expired due to Term
First Claim
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1. An apparatus to be attached to a body having a size between the sizes of a human finger and a human torso, said body having an orientation, relative to an external reference frame, said apparatus generating an orientation signal that corresponds to at least one degree of freedom of said orientation of said body, said apparatus comprising:

  • a. a self contained angular rate sensor that generates a first sensor signal that corresponds to the rotational rate of said body about at least one axis of said body;

    b. a mechanism for mounting said sensor to said body;

    c. coupled to said sensor, an integrator that integrates said first sensor rotational rate signal with respect to time and generates an output signal that corresponds to at least one degree of freedom of the orientation of said body; and

    d. a drift compensator, coupled to said angular rate sensor and said integrator, which periodically generates an orientation drift compensation signal that gradually reduces the effect of any drift in the integrator output signal so that no jump or shift due to the drift correction is apparent to a human user.

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