Pedestrian Stride Length Estimation from IMU Measurements and ANN Based Algorithm

Pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR) can be used for continuous position estimation when satellite or other radio signals are not available, and the accuracy of the stride length measurement is important. Current stride length estimation algorithms, including linear and nonlinear models, consider a few variable factors, and some rely on high precision and high cost equipment. This paper puts forward a stride length estimation algorithm based on a back propagation artificial neural network (BP-ANN), using a consumer-grade inertial measurement unit (IMU); it then discusses various factors in the algorithm. The experimental results indicate that the error of the proposed algorithm in estimating the stride length is approximately 2%, which is smaller than that of the frequency and nonlinear models. Compared with the latter two models, the proposed algorithm does not need to determine individual parameters in advance if the trained neural net is effective. It can, thus, be concluded that this algorithm shows superior performance in estimating pedestrian stride length.