Personal navigation via shoe mounted inertial measurement units

Abstract

We are developing a personal micronavigation system that uses high-resolution gait-corrected inertial measurement units. The goal of this project is to develop a navigation system that use secondary inertial variables, such as velocity, to enable long-term precise navigation in the absence of Global Positioning System (GPS) and beacon signals. In this scheme, measured zero velocity durations from the ground reaction sensors are used to reset the accumulated integration errors from the accelerometers and gyroscopes in position calculation. We achieved an average position error of 4 meters at the end of half-hour walks.