Aiding MEMS IMU with building heading for indoor pedestrian navigation

Heading drift error remains a problem in a standalone navigation system that uses only low cost MEMS IMU due to yaw error unobservability. This paper therefore proposes a shoe mounted IMU approach, integrated with ZUPT and building heading information in Kalman filter environment to reduce heading drift for pedestrian navigation application. There were no additional sensors used except MEMS IMU that contains accelerometers and gyros. Two trials; represented by regular and irregular walking trials, were undertaken in a typical public building. The results were then compared with HSGPS solution and IMU+ZUPT solution. Based on these trials, return position error of 0.1% from total distance travelled was achieved using a low cost MEMS IMU only.