TRAVEL ORIENTATION CALCULATION APPARATUS, TRAVEL ORIENTATION CALCULATION METHOD, TRAVEL ORIENTATION CALCULATION PROGRAM, AND NAVIGATION APPARATUS

• US 20140088867A1
• Filed: 05/09/2012
• Published: 03/27/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 05/17/2011
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Takaoka, Tomohisa
• Application Number:
  US14/116,141
• Publication Number:
  US 20140088867A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 701/526
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/10 by using measurements of speed or acceleration G01C21/24, G01C21/26 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/16 by integrating acceleration or speed, i.e. inertial navigation
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 22/006 Pedometers

Abstract

A travel orientation can be calculated with a high degree of accuracy.

A travel orientation calculation apparatus of the present disclosure includes a detecting unit that detects a vertical acceleration representing an acceleration in a vertical direction and a horizontal acceleration representing an orientation and a magnitude of an acceleration in a horizontal plane among accelerations generated along with walking of a user, a walking period setting unit that sets a period of time corresponding to two steps of the user as a walking period based on a zero-cross point of the vertical acceleration, an acceleration/deceleration switching phase setting unit that sets an acceleration/deceleration switching phase at which switching between acceleration and deceleration in the user'"'"'s travel direction is performed based on a phases at which the magnitude of the horizontal acceleration is minimum in the walking period, an acceleration/deceleration section estimating unit that alternately estimates each section delimited at each acceleration/deceleration switching phase as an acceleration section or a deceleration section, and a travel orientation deciding unit that decides the user'"'"'s travel orientation based on an orientation represented by the horizontal acceleration in the deceleration section and an orientation opposite to the orientation represented by the horizontal acceleration in the acceleration section.

Claims

1. A travel orientation calculation apparatus, comprising:

a detecting unit that detects a vertical acceleration representing an acceleration in a vertical direction and a horizontal acceleration representing an orientation and a magnitude of an acceleration in a horizontal plane among accelerations generated along with walking of a user;

a walking period setting unit that sets a period of time corresponding to two steps of the user as a walking period based on a zero-cross point of the vertical acceleration;

an acceleration/deceleration switching phase setting unit that sets an acceleration/deceleration switching phase at which switching between acceleration and deceleration in the user'"'"'s travel direction is performed based on a phases at which the magnitude of the horizontal acceleration is minimum in the walking period;

an acceleration/deceleration section estimating unit that alternately estimates each section delimited at each acceleration/deceleration switching phase as an acceleration section or a deceleration section; and

a travel orientation deciding unit that decides the user'"'"'s travel orientation based on an orientation represented by the horizontal acceleration in the deceleration section and an orientation opposite to the orientation represented by the horizontal acceleration in the acceleration section.

2. The travel orientation calculation apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein the acceleration/deceleration switching phase setting unit sets a phase which is high in a frequency that the magnitude of the horizontal acceleration is minimum in the walking period as the acceleration/deceleration switching phase.

3. The travel orientation calculation apparatus according to claim 2,

wherein the acceleration/deceleration switching phase setting unit calculates an orientation angle representing an orientation in which the acceleration works through polar coordinates and a differential value of the orientation angle based on the horizontal acceleration, and sets a predetermined number of phases selected in the descending order of the differential values of the orientation angle among phases at which the magnitude of the horizontal acceleration is minimum as an addition target of the frequency.

4. The travel orientation calculation apparatus according to claim 2,

wherein the acceleration/deceleration switching phase setting unit sets the acceleration/deceleration switching phase sequentially from a phase which is highest in the frequency that the magnitude of the horizontal acceleration is minimum in the walking period as the acceleration/deceleration switching phase, and excludes a phase whose interval with an already set acceleration/deceleration switching phase is less than a predetermined interval from a setting target of a new acceleration/deceleration switching phase.

5. The travel orientation calculation apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein the acceleration/deceleration switching phase setting unit sets four points as the acceleration/deceleration switching phase in the walking period.

6. The travel orientation calculation apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein the walking period setting unit sets a length of the walking period based on a period of time until a waveform similar to a predetermined portion in the vertical acceleration appears again.

7. The travel orientation calculation apparatus according to claim 6,

wherein the walking period setting unit calculates an auto-correlation degree while sequentially increasing a phase difference on the vertical acceleration, and sets a phase difference at which an extreme value in which the auto-correlation degree increases appears for the second time as the length of the walking period.

8. The travel orientation calculation apparatus according to claim 7,

wherein the walking period setting unit calculates the auto-correlation degree based on an auto-correlation value that decreases as the auto-correlation degree increases, and when a first minimum value of the auto-correlation value is a j times (here, 0<

j<

1) or less of a maximum value appearing immediately before, and a second minimum value of the auto-correlation value is a k times (here, 0<

k<

j) or less of a maximum value appearing immediately before, sets a phase difference at which the second minimum value appears as the length of the walking period.

9. The travel orientation calculation apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein the walking period setting unit sets the walking period, and sets a falling zero-cross point at which a difference between a maximum value and a minimum value which are adjacent to each other in the vertical acceleration in the walking period is maximum as a reference phase used as a reference of a phase.

10. The travel orientation calculation apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein the detecting unit further includes

an acceleration sensor that detects an acceleration applied to the travel orientation calculation apparatus, and obtains an acceleration detection value represented by a specific three-dimensional (3D) detection coordinate system;

a vertical direction calculating unit that calculates a vertical direction based on the acceleration detection value; and

a transforming unit that uses the vertical direction component among the acceleration detection values as the vertical acceleration, and uses a two-dimensional (2D) component included in a horizontal plane orthogonal to the vertical direction among the acceleration detection values as the horizontal acceleration.

11. The travel orientation calculation apparatus according to claim 10,

wherein the detecting unit further includes a geomagnetic sensor that detects a direction of a magnetic north in the travel orientation calculation apparatus, and

the transforming unit transforms an orientation represented by the horizontal acceleration into an absolute orientation based on the magnetic north.

12. The travel orientation calculation apparatus according to claim 11,

wherein the transforming unit transforms the acceleration detection value from the detection coordinate system into an earth coordinate system having each of the vertical direction and a direction corresponding to the magnetic north as an axis direction.

13. The travel orientation calculation apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising,

a travel orientation smoothing unit that calculates an addition average by multiplying the travel orientation by a coefficient according to the magnitude of the horizontal acceleration.

14. A travel orientation calculation method, comprising:

a detecting step of detecting, by a detecting unit, a vertical acceleration representing an acceleration in a vertical direction and a horizontal acceleration representing an orientation and a magnitude of an acceleration in a horizontal plane among accelerations generated along with walking of a user;

a walking period setting step of setting, by a walking period setting unit, a period of time corresponding to two steps of the user as a walking period based on a zero-cross point of the vertical acceleration;

an acceleration/deceleration switching phase setting step of setting, by an acceleration/deceleration switching phase setting unit, an acceleration/deceleration switching phase at which switching between acceleration and deceleration in the user'"'"'s travel direction is performed based on a phases at which the magnitude of the horizontal acceleration is minimum in the walking period;

an acceleration/deceleration section estimating step of alternately estimating, by an acceleration/deceleration section estimating unit, each section delimited at each acceleration/deceleration switching phase as an acceleration section or a deceleration section; and

a travel orientation deciding step of deciding, by a travel orientation deciding unit, the user'"'"'s travel orientation based on an orientation represented by the horizontal acceleration in the deceleration section and an orientation opposite to the orientation represented by the horizontal acceleration in the acceleration section.

15. A travel orientation calculation program causing an information processing apparatus to execute:

a detecting step of detecting a vertical acceleration representing an acceleration in a vertical direction and a horizontal acceleration representing an orientation and a magnitude of an acceleration in a horizontal plane among accelerations generated along with walking of a user;

a walking period setting step of setting a period of time corresponding to two steps of the user as a walking period based on a zero-cross point of the vertical acceleration;

an acceleration/deceleration switching phase setting step of setting an acceleration/deceleration switching phase at which switching between acceleration and deceleration in the user'"'"'s travel direction is performed based on a phases at which the magnitude of the horizontal acceleration is minimum in the walking period;

an acceleration/deceleration section estimating step of alternately estimating each section delimited at each acceleration/deceleration switching phase as an acceleration section or a deceleration section; and

a travel orientation deciding step of deciding the user'"'"'s travel orientation based on an orientation represented by the horizontal acceleration in the deceleration section and an orientation opposite to the orientation represented by the horizontal acceleration in the acceleration section.

16. A navigation apparatus, comprising:

a detecting unit that detects a vertical acceleration representing an acceleration in a vertical direction and a horizontal acceleration representing an orientation and a magnitude of an acceleration in a horizontal plane among accelerations generated along with walking of a user;

a walking period setting unit that sets a period of time corresponding to two steps of the user as a walking period based on a zero-cross point of the vertical acceleration;

an acceleration/deceleration switching phase setting unit that sets an acceleration/deceleration switching phase at which switching between acceleration and deceleration in the user'"'"'s travel direction is performed based on a phases at which the magnitude of the horizontal acceleration is minimum in the walking period;

an acceleration/deceleration section estimating unit that alternately estimates each section delimited at each acceleration/deceleration switching phase as an acceleration section or a deceleration section;

a travel orientation deciding unit that decides the user'"'"'s travel orientation based on an orientation represented by the horizontal acceleration in the deceleration section and an orientation opposite to the orientation represented by the horizontal acceleration in the acceleration section; and

a provision control unit that provides the user with guidance based on a current position detected by a predetermined position detecting unit and the travel orientation through a predetermined providing unit.