An Adaptive Orientation Estimation Method for Magnetic and Inertial Sensors in the Presence of Magnetic Disturbances
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State Key Laboratory of Fluid Power and Mechatronic Systems, School of Mechanical Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China
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Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON K7L 3N6, Canada
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Academic Editors: Edward Sazonov and Subhas Chandra Mukhopadhyay
Sensors 2017, 17(5), 1161; https://doi.org/10.3390/s17051161
Received: 4 March 2017
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Revised: 12 May 2017
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Accepted: 13 May 2017
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Published: 19 May 2017
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Wearable and Ambient Sensors for Healthcare and Wellness Applications)
Magnetic and inertial sensors have been widely used to estimate the orientation of human segments due to their low cost, compact size and light weight. However, the accuracy of the estimated orientation is easily affected by external factors, especially when the sensor is used in an environment with magnetic disturbances. In this paper, we propose an adaptive method to improve the accuracy of orientation estimations in the presence of magnetic disturbances. The method is based on existing gradient descent algorithms, and it is performed prior to sensor fusion algorithms. The proposed method includes stationary state detection and magnetic disturbance severity determination. The stationary state detection makes this method immune to magnetic disturbances in stationary state, while the magnetic disturbance severity determination helps to determine the credibility of magnetometer data under dynamic conditions, so as to mitigate the negative effect of the magnetic disturbances. The proposed method was validated through experiments performed on a customized three-axis instrumented gimbal with known orientations. The error of the proposed method and the original gradient descent algorithms were calculated and compared. Experimental results demonstrate that in stationary state, the proposed method is completely immune to magnetic disturbances, and in dynamic conditions, the error caused by magnetic disturbance is reduced by 51.2% compared with original MIMU gradient descent algorithm.
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Keywords:
inertial and magnetic sensors; orientation estimation; magnetic disturbances; instrumented gimbal; gradient descent algorithm
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MDPI and ACS Style
Fan, B.; Li, Q.; Wang, C.; Liu, T. An Adaptive Orientation Estimation Method for Magnetic and Inertial Sensors in the Presence of Magnetic Disturbances. Sensors 2017, 17, 1161. https://doi.org/10.3390/s17051161
AMA Style
Fan B, Li Q, Wang C, Liu T. An Adaptive Orientation Estimation Method for Magnetic and Inertial Sensors in the Presence of Magnetic Disturbances. Sensors. 2017; 17(5):1161. https://doi.org/10.3390/s17051161
Chicago/Turabian StyleFan, Bingfei, Qingguo Li, Chao Wang, and Tao Liu. 2017. "An Adaptive Orientation Estimation Method for Magnetic and Inertial Sensors in the Presence of Magnetic Disturbances" Sensors 17, no. 5: 1161. https://doi.org/10.3390/s17051161
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