An Experimental Heuristic Approach to Multi-Pose Pedestrian Dead Reckoning Without Using Magnetometers for Indoor Localization

Pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR) is a potential technique for smartphone-based indoor localization using the built-in accelerometers and gyroscopes. However, most current PDR positioning approaches restrict the pose to carry a phone, such as holding it in front of the body during tracking. In addition, heading determination is the primary error sources in PDR systems, and hence, a magnetometer is normally required to reduce heading errors. However, in indoor environments, magnetometer outputs would be seriously distorted by magnetic disturbances from the building structures and electronics. In this paper, an experimental heuristic approach to multi-pose PDR (mpPDR) indoor positioning for structured environments has been proposed. Six poses and four modes to carry a phone could be recognized, and then, on the basis of different modes, an experimental approach to the heading determination without using magnetometers has been presented to reduce the heading error considering the effects of turning and hand-shaking events. The experimental results indicate that the proposed approach supports four smartphone modes with a high position accuracy of 97.99%.