An inertial navigation system with acoustic obstacle detection for pedestrian applications

This paper presents an assisted personalized navigation system which makes use of inertial based navigation algorithms in combination with acoustic mapping sensors to perform barrier detection and avoidance. The systems can track, in real time, the position of a user in any environment using a foot mounted Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU). This paper discusses techniques used to combine data from a zero-velocity updating (ZUPT) pedestrian navigation algorithm and a user mounted ultrasonic obstacle detection sensor to create a personalized navigation system. The mapping technique uses information from the localization algorithm in order to detect nearby obstacles and barriers. The resulting system is able to track a pedestrian in an unknown environment while mapping, in real time, nearby obstacles and barriers. All mapping and localization is done onboard to ensure the device is a fully stand-alone system.