Tutorial: Implementing a Pedestrian Tracker Using Inertial Sensors

The article outlines a simple yet effective approach for implementing a reasonably accurate tracker. Pedestrian dead-reckoning (PDR) using foot-mounted inertial measurement units (IMU) is the basis for many indoor localization techniques, including map matching, various types of simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM), and integration with GPS. Dead reckoning is the process of estimating an object's position by tracking its movements relative to a known starting point. A typical example is a ship travelling at a constant speed in a fixed direction. The ship's current position is on a line starting at the known starting point in the direction of travel, and the distance from the starting point is given by the speed along the direction of travel multiplied by the time since the ship was at that known point.