IMU Tilt Sensing

UC Santa Cruz
UC Santa Cruz Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Title
IMU Data Processing to Recognize Activities of Daily Living with Smart Headset
Permalink
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5rs5t0sf
Author
Aranburu, Alex
Publication Date
2018
Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation
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University of California
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
SANTA CRUZ
IMU DATA PROCESSING TO RECOGNIZE ACTIVITIES OF

DAILY LIVING WITH A SMART HEADSET
A thesis submitted in partial satisfaction

of the requirements for the degree of
MASTER OF SCIENCE
in
Electrical Engineering
by
Alex Aranburu
June 2018
The thesis of Alex Aranburu

is approved:
Professor Yu Zhang, Chair
Professor Dejan Milutinovic, Advisor
Mr. Shridhar Mukund
Tyrus Miller
Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies
Contents
1 Introduction 1
1.1 State of the Art on ADL Tracking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2 Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2 Data Acquisition 5
2.1 Sensing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.1.1 Accelerometer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.1.2 Gyroscope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.1.3 Magnetometer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.2 Sensor Characterization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.3 Calibration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.3.1 Accelerometer and Gyroscope Calibration . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.3.2 Magnetometer Calibration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.4 Hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3 Data Processing 26
3.1 Orientation Estimation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
3.1.1 Euler Angles Estimation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3.1.2 Quaternion-based Estimation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3.1.3 Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
3.2 Position Estimation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
3.2.1 Linear Acceleration Estimation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
3.2.2 Velocity and Position Estimation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
4 Pattern Recognition 83
4.1 Event Detection Algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
4.2 Classification Algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
5 Tests and Results 94
6 Conclusions and Future Lines 98
References 100
iii
List of Figures
2.1 Example of a 9 DoF IMU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.2 Measured acceleration at rest (stationary conditions) in X (blue), Y

(red) and Z (green) axes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.3 Measured angular velocity at rest (stationary conditions) in X (blue),

Y (red) and Z (green) axes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.4 Vectorial representation of the geomagnetic field, in function of the

inclination angle δ and magnitude B. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.5 Measured magnetic flux at rest (stationary conditions) in X (blue),

Y (red) and Z (green) axes, in Santa Cruz, California. . . . . . . . . . 12
2.6 Gaussian approximation of measured probability density function (his-

togram) of accelerometer at rest (stationary conditions) along X, Y
and Z axes, from top to bottom. The mean µ and standard deviation
σ here are represented by u and std, respectively. . . . . . . . . . . . 13

togram) of gyroscope at rest (stationary conditions) along X, Y and
Z axes, from top to bottom. The mean µ and standard deviation σ
here are represented by u and std, respectively. . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

togram) of magnetometer at rest (stationary conditions) along X, Y
and Z axes, from top to bottom. The mean µ and standard deviation
σ here are represented by u and std, respectively. . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.9 Locus of uncalibrated raw magnetometer measurements under a strong

hard-iron and soft-iron environment with optimum ellipsoidal fit su-
perimposed. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.10 Transformation from uncalibrated locus to calibrated locus with op-

timum spherical fit superimposed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.11 MP-9250 breakout, showing all axes orientation for each sensor. . . . 24
iv
3.1 Euler angles roll (φ), pitch (θ) and yaw (ψ). [5pt] . . . . . . . . . . . 28
3.2 Roll angle error surface |∆φ| for µ = 0.01. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
3.3 Roll angle error surface |∆φ| for µ = 0.1. [7pt] . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
3.4 Phase unwrapping example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
3.5 Roll and pitch estimation using accelerometer data and Euler angles. 35
3.6 Roll and pitch estimation using gyroscope data. . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3.7 Improved roll and pitch estimation after fusing accelerometer and
gyroscope estimations by a complimentary filter. . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.8 Yaw estimation using magnetometer data and Euler angles. . . . . . . 40
3.9 Yaw estimation using gyroscope data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
3.10 Improved yaw estimation after fusing magnetometer and gyroscope

estimations by a complimentary filter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.11 Visual representation of complex symbols properties. . . . . . . . . . 43
3.12 Simplified 2D comparison between Linear intERPolation (LERP) and

Spherical Linear IntERPolation (SLERP). Note that in this case q a =
¯ L qacc or ∆
∆LG qacc or ∆LG qmag , q b = qI and q int = ∆ ¯ L qmag used below. 60
G G
3.13 Gain factor function f (eg ) for the accelerometer and magnetometer
error quaternion complementary filter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
3.14 Roll, pitch and yaw angles estimation (colored lines) with quaternion-
based complementary filter compared to gyroscope angle estimation
(dashed line). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
3.15 Block diagram of orientation estimation process through quaternions

and complementary filter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
3.16 Roll, pitch and yaw angles estimation (colored lines) with quaternion-
based complementary filter compared to gyroscope angle estimation
(dashed line). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
3.17 Comparison of the three analyzed orientation estimation approaches:

Euler angles (green), quaternion-based complementary filter (red) and
quaternion-based Multiplicative Extended Kalman Filter (blue). . . . 74
3.18 Comparison of the quaternion-based complementary filter (red) and

quaternion-based Multiplicative Extended Kalman Filter (blue). . . . 75
v
3.19 Linear accelerometer estimation at rest (stationary conditions). . . . . 78
3.20 Comparison of filtered linear accelerometer estimation (colored lines)

and raw accelerometer estimation (dashed lines) when standing up
(around t = 12s). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
3.21 Velocity estimation when standing up (around t = 12s). . . . . . . . . 81
3.22 Position estimation when standing up (around t = 12s). . . . . . . . . 82
4.1 Detection signal (in blue) and k = 40 times the short-term standard
deviation kσST (dashed line) when standing up (around t = 14s).
The event has been correctly detected at the red dot. . . . . . . . . . 85
4.2 Detection signal (in blue), k = 40 times the short-term standard

deviation kσST (dashed gray line), minimum threshold thmin = 16
(dashed red line) and maximum threshold thmax = 100 (dashed green
line) with standing up (around t = 3.5s), walking (around t = 7.5s),
sitting down (around t = 13.5s) and head movement (around t =
18s) movement events. Events have been correctly detected and head
movement has been successfully neglected. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
4.3 Template of the standing up pattern represented with the scaled ver-
tical linear velocity (along Z axis). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
4.4 Template of the sitting down pattern represented with the scaled
vertical linear velocity (along Z axis). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
4.5 Template of the noisy movement pattern represented with the scaled
vertical linear velocity (along Z axis). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
4.6 Test signal of a sitting down event represented with the scaled vertical
linear velocity (along Z axis). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
4.7 Pattern recognition of a standing up event through template matching

between aligned test signal and template patterns using euclidean
distance (d in the plots). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
4.8 Pattern recognition of a sitting down event through template match-

ing between aligned test signal and template patterns using euclidean
distance (d in the plots). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
5.1 Illustration with probability distributions of an event happening and

not happening. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
vi
5.2 Illustration of hit (true positive), missed detection (false negative),
correct rejection (true negative) and false alarm (false positive) in
signal detection theory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
vii
List of Tables
2.1 Full-scale range and sampling rate options of the MPU-9250. [5pt] . . 24
5.1 Test result distributions showing the event detection algorithm per-
formance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
5.2 Test result distribution showing the classification algorithm perfor-

mance. [2pt] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
viii
IMU Data Processing to Recognize Activities of
Daily Living with a Smart Headset
Master’s Thesis
Alex Aranburu
Abstract
This thesis proposes a novel approach for the detection and recognition of hu-
man movements. Specifically, Activities of Daily Living (ADL) such as standing up,
sitting down and walking are tracked. In order to monitor human motion, a headset
prototype with a single Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) with accelerometer, gy-
roscope and magnetometer has been developed. Accurate estimation of orientation
and velocity through computationally cheap IMU data processing allows a repre-
sentative characterization of human behavior patterns in this case. Thanks to tests
performed among different subjects, results show that events are robustly detected
89% of the cases and that activities are recognized with a success rate of 92%. What
is more, adequate rejection of noisy movements has also been achieved 94% of the
time. Thus, an efficient and robust solution for human physical activity tracking is
presented.
ix
1. Introduction
During the last years, the use of wearable devices has been widely spread in various
industrial and academic domains. In addition, an increase in the quality, accuracy
and cheapness of inertial sensors has popularly lead to quantitative analysis of human
orientation and displacement behaviors. This thesis proposes and explains a new
efficient solution to detect and recognize Activities of Daily Living (ADL) trough a
smart headset containing a single Intertial Measurement Unit (IMU) and performing
minimal processing.
First of all, the state of the art is covered here in Section 1, followed by the
sought objectives throughout the thesis. Secondly, the proposed method is exhaus-
tively explained showing data acquisition, data processing and pattern recognition
procedures in Section 2, Section 3 and Section 4, respectively. After that, the per-
formed tests and obtained results are remarked in Section 5. To conclude, Section
5 summarizes the fundamental concepts and concludes with the future lines and
conclusions of the work.
1
1.1 State of the Art on ADL Tracking
Activities of Daily Living is a term employed in healthcare and embraces people’s
any self care daily activity. With regards to this, the scientific community has
recently shown an special interest in monitoring human motion and physical activity.
Valuable information about ADL such as walking, sitting down, and standing up,
may actually help clinicians to monitor rehabilitation and pharmaceutical treatment
processes [1], [2]. What is more, the wish to constantly track daily activity has
significantly increased among people that take particular care of pursuing a healthy
lifestyle. It is well known that the information provided by inertial sensors data and
processing perfectly suits human motion applications in virtual reality environments,
smartphones, GPS-aided vehicles and more [3], [4]. As a result, several automatic
methods and systems capable of detecting and classifying such activities have been
developed.
Following previous research studies, there are several approaches that attempt
to recognize human motion and ADL through IMUs. However, most of them use
more than a single sensor, or they are placed strategically in a specific part of the
body that changes from application to application [5]–[7].
Moreover, a wide range of pattern recognition techniques have been employed
to perform activity or movement detection and classification, from Hidden Markov
Models (HMM), to Gaussian Mixture Models (GMM), k-Nearest Neighbour (k-NN),
Support Vector Machine (SVM), etc. [8], [9]. Recently, machine learning techniques
have become very popular when trying to monitor human physical activity [10].
2
Many authors required a large dataset to classify ADL successfully, specially using
Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) [11].
At the writing date of this thesis, there is not any known solution that places
inertial sensors in the head and still performs ADL recognition with reasonable
results. Besides, many of the existing approaches require long and expensive training
procedures or high computational resources and processing.
1.2 Objectives
Prior to the completion of this thesis, various objectives were listed so that satisfac-
tory results could be obtained. Primarily, the main goal has been to find a solution
to simple ADL detection and recognition such as standing up, sitting down and
walking by means of a headset equipped with an IMU. To be more specific, a list of
secondary objectives has been written down.
Firstly, one of the aims has been to rely only on a single IMU. Extra sensors
and hardware considerably add to the energy consumption, computational effort
and equipment cost. Like that, there is no need for additional communication and
synchronization strategies in the algorithm.
In addition, inertial sensors must be placed on the head with non-invasive meth-
ods. A headset perfectly satisfies this condition, as it is used by millions of people
all around the globe for different purposes. Other solutions in the past included
their IMUs in the waist through a belt, in the back, in the feet and other places in
the body where a specific device needs to be worn, against the convenience of the
3
user.
Furthermore, it has been intended to provide a fully working headset prototype so
that an added-value product can be built by headset manufacturers and producers.
It is known that headsets nowadays come with their own processing platforms for
noise suppression, echo cancellation, etc. For that reason, as reduced computational
cost as possible has been sought from the beginning. This might imply using sim-
plest algorithms and traditional techniques instead of ultimate complex solutions.
Thus, efficiency has been one of the main priorities in many aspects throughout the
completion of this thesis.
To conclude, the new hardware should not notably increase manufacturing (and
market) prices. While some other work in the field relies in the high accuracy of
sensors with a prohibitive cost, proposed hardware does not exceed the $5 (manu-
facturing price) in this case. That is why only cheap hardware and low-cost sensors
have been integrated into the given solution.
4
2. Data Acquisition
The first step of the solution consists of acquiring human motion and environmental
conditions through low-cost sensors. Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs) have been
selected for that purpose, as they meet such requirements rightfully. Considering
that an IMU provides measurements in the local reference frame, with variable
scale and frequency, there are several aspects that have to be taken into account
in the data acquisition process. It is essential to build meaningful measurement
models of the sensors which allow to predict possible effects of external interferences
during sensing. What is more, special care has to be taken when characterizing and
calibrating sensors carefully to ensure successful data acquisition.
2.1 Sensing
Typically, IMUs are composed by MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical System) based
sensors like an accelerometer and a gyroscope, in addition to a magnetometer or
compass (see an example in Figure 2.1). They are popularly used to get track of
aircrafts, spacecrafts, satellites, cars, etc [12]. In this case, a 9 axis or 9 DoF (Degrees
of Freedom) IMU able to obtain measurements in 3 dimensions has been placed in
5
a headset, with the aim of sensing head movements. In the next section we describe
measurements of sensors, the units employed and sources of measurement errors.
Figure 2.1: Example of a 9 DoF IMU
2.1.1 Accelerometer
The accelerometer measures the acceleration along three orthogonal dimensions in
m/s2 or g units, where 1g = 9.81m/s2 . The sensed acceleration ã can be approx-
imated as a sum of gravitational acceleration a(g) , external or linear acceleration
a(l) and Additive Gaussian random noise ϕ, with zero-mean and σ 2acc variance,
(ϕ ∼ N (0, σ 2acc )).
ã = a(g) + a(l) + ϕ (2.1)
If the sensor is properly calibrated, at rest and lies on a flat surface, measured
acceleration in stationary conditions ãss points up (in Z axis) and corresponds to
a(g) . In that case, if the noise is ignored (see Figure 2.2), there is no linear or external
6
(g)
acceleration so that a(l) = 0g and az = 1g, i.e.,
     
0 ϕx  0
     
(g)
     
0 + ϕy  ≈ 0
ãss = a + ϕ =  (2.2)
    
     
     
1 ϕz 1
This fact is commonly employed as the key assumption of many estimation al-
gorithms, which are covered in Section 3.
Acceleration in X, Y, Z axes
0.04
0.035
0.03
0.025
0 1 2 3 4 5
Acceleration (g)
−0.026
−0.028
−0.03
−0.032
0 1 2 3 4 5
1.035
1.03
1.025
1.02
0 1 2 3 4 5
t (sec)
Figure 2.2: Measured acceleration at rest (stationary conditions) in X (blue), Y

(red) and Z (green) axes.
In general, estimations computed from accelerometer measurements are not re-
liable in short term due to motion and measurement noise. Nevertheless, they are
7
accurate in long term as there is no drift, or what is the same, the noise does not
get summed up over and over after each measurement.
2.1.2 Gyroscope
The gyroscope is capable of measuring angular velocities in all three dimensions in
◦
/s or rad/s. In contrast with the accelerometer, the gyroscope contains significant
non-stationary sensor bias β which is temperature dependent and can be approxi-
mated as a constant. Together with the zero-mean Gaussian noise η ∼ N (0, σ 2gyro ),
the bias also adds up to the actual angular velocity w. As a result, the total measure-
ment noise (β + η) has a non-zero mean Gaussian distribution N (β, σ 2gyro ). Figure
2.3 shows gyroscope data recorded at stationary conditions w̃ss , that corresponds
to zero angular velocity wss = 0.
w̃ = w + β + η (2.3)
 
βx 
 
 
w̃ss = β + η ≈ 
 βy 
 (2.4)
 
 
βz
Three dimensional orientation angles Θ̂[t] can be directly estimated by integrat-
ing angular velocities if the sample time ∆t is known.
8
Angular velocity in X, Y, Z axes
0.2
0
Angular velocity (deg/sec)
−0.2
0 1 2 3 4 5
0.2
−0.2
0 1 2 3 4 5
0.1
−0.1
0 1 2 3 4 5
t (sec)
Figure 2.3: Measured angular velocity at rest (stationary conditions) in X (blue), Y

(red) and Z (green) axes.
 
 φgyro [t + ∆t] 
 
 
Θ̂gyro [t + ∆t] = 
 θgyro [t + ∆t]
 = Θ̂gyro [t] + w̃∆t
 (2.5)
 
 
ψgyro [t + ∆t]
Unfortunately, this method also integrates noise, thus adding drift over time.
This fact makes it impossible to estimate orientation angles φ (roll, rotation around
X axis), θ (pitch, rotation around Y axis) and ψ (yaw, rotation around Z axis)
accurately by using a gyroscope alone.
Consequently, unlike the accelerometer, the gyroscope measurements are consid-
ered to be very accurate at high frequencies or short term but they are not reliable at
9
all in the long term due to the drift. In fact, as the accelerometer related parameters
do provide reliability in the long term, there are many sensor fusion algorithms that
exploit this feature and complement both sensors.
2.1.3 Magnetometer
The magnetometer or compass measures the magnetic flux of the geomagnetic field in
µT or Gauss, where 1 Gauss = 100 µT . While the IMU body-related measurements
are obtained by the accelerometer and gyroscope, the magnetometer senses the
magnetic field of the earth. It is essential to remark this aspect, as this is what gives
a sense of a global coordinate frame to IMU measurements. Without a compass, all
measurements and estimated parameters could only be described within the body
or local reference system.
Having said that, the geomagnetic field has some particularities that are worth
mentioning. The horizontal vector of the field always points to the north. In the
northern hemisphere, the vertical vector points downward, whereas it points up-
wards in the southern hemisphere. In either case, the vector points with an angle
of inclination δ, which depends on the location (-90◦ in the south magnetic pole, 0◦
through the equator and +90◦ in the north magnetic pole) [13]. Besides, the magni-
tude of the geomagnetic field B is also a function of earth’s surface and varies from a
minimum of 22 µT over South America to a maximum of 67 µT south of Australia.
Figure 2.4 illustrates the vectorial representation of the geomagnetic field.
Another significant difference from the other sensors is related to the calibration.
The magnetometer suffers from the so-called soft- and hard-iron offsets, produced
10
Figure 2.4: Vectorial representation of the geomagnetic field, in function of the
inclination angle δ and magnitude B.
by external factors such as nearby materials, radio waves, etc. and by permanent
magnetic field existing in the sensor Printed Circuit Board (PCB), respectively.
The soft-iron offset is represented by a 3x3 rotation matrix W that multiplies the
actual 3-dimensional magnetic flux vector b. The hard-iron offset vector V and
random noise ζ, modeled with a zero-mean Gaussian distribution N (0, σ 2mag ), are
added up to the previous component and describe the measured magnetic flux b̃.
Figure 2.5 shows magnetometer data recorded at stationary conditions in Santa
Cruz, California.
b̃ = W × b + V + ζ (2.6)
Similar to the accelerometer, the compass is too noisy to be reliable in the short
term and is also accurate in the long term or at low frequencies. Therefore, it
complements adequately with the gyroscope in some sensor fusion algorithms as
well.
11
Magnetic flux in X, Y, Z axes
26
24
22
20
0 1 2 3 4 5
Magnetic flux (uT)
−38
−40
−42
−44
0 1 2 3 4 5
−45
−50
−55
0 1 2 3 4 5
t (sec)
Figure 2.5: Measured magnetic flux at rest (stationary conditions) in X (blue), Y

(red) and Z (green) axes, in Santa Cruz, California.
2.2 Sensor Characterization
Since raw IMU measurements might differ significantly from real values, character-
izing and calibrating IMU sensors properly is essential in many scenarios. Random
noise, bias, interferences, offsets and other phenomena may often contribute to sig-
nal degradation. Sometimes, it is uncertain how these artifacts can affect to sensor
measurements and that is why probabilistic methods become effective in this field.
It has been proven that IMU sensors measurements follow normal or Gaussian
distributions [14], that simplify many of the assumptions considered when modeling
uncertainties. For example, sensor noise in 2.1 was easily represented with normal
12
distributions.
In order to obtain approximated values of noise distribution mean and variance,
data from all sensors has been recorded in stationary conditions and for a long period
(over 20 seconds). Hereafter, Figure 2.6, 2.7 and 2.8 show the probability density
functions of the measurements of each sensor (approximated by histograms) and
confirm that Gaussian distributions are followed.
Acceleration noise histogram along X, Y, Z axes

600
u = 4e-02, std = 8e-04
400
200
0
0.041 0.042 0.043 0.044 0.045 0.046 0.047 0.048
400
u = -2e-02, std = 9e-04
Counts
200
0
−0.02 −0.019 −0.018 −0.017 −0.016 −0.015 −0.014 −0.013
400
u = 1e+00, std = 1e-03
200
0
1.02 1.022 1.024 1.026 1.028 1.03 1.032 1.034
Acceleration (g)
Figure 2.6: Gaussian approximation of measured probability density function (his-

togram) of accelerometer at rest (stationary conditions) along X, Y and Z axes, from
top to bottom. The mean µ and standard deviation σ here are represented by u and
std, respectively.
At this point, the sensors have already been characterized and variances σ 2acc ,
σ 2gyro , σ 2mag and gyroscope bias β = µgyro can be defined along X, Y and Z axes.
While gyroscope bias will be removed directly from every measurement, noise vari-
13
Angular velocity noise histogram along X, Y, Z axes
600
u = -6e-03, std = 4e-02
400
200
0
−0.2 −0.15 −0.1 −0.05 0 0.05 0.1 0.15
1000
u = -4e-02, std = 4e-02
Counts
500
0
−0.2 −0.15 −0.1 −0.05 0 0.05 0.1 0.15
1000
u = -1e-02, std = 4e-02
500
0
−0.2 −0.15 −0.1 −0.05 0 0.05 0.1 0.15
Angular velocity (deg/sec)

togram) of gyroscope at rest (stationary conditions) along X, Y and Z axes, from
top to bottom. The mean µ and standard deviation σ here are represented by u and
std, respectively.
ances will be used in further estimation steps. Hereafter, the specific values can be
found for our sensors.
     
5.97 × 10−7  4.25 × 10−3  0.617
     
     
σ 2acc =
7.08 × 10−7 
 σ 2gyro =
1.35 × 10−3 
 σ 2mag =
0.648
 (2.7)
     
     
1.40 × 10−6 1.22 × 10−3 0.575
14
Magnetic flux noise histogram along X, Y, Z axes
400
u = 4e+01, std = 8e-01
200
0
33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40
400
u = -4e+00, std = 7e-01
Counts
200
0
−6.5 −6 −5.5 −5 −4.5 −4 −3.5 −3 −2.5 −2 −1.5
400
u = -4e+01, std = 8e-01
200
0
−47 −46 −45 −44 −43 −42 −41
Magnetic flux (uT)

togram) of magnetometer at rest (stationary conditions) along X, Y and Z axes,
from top to bottom. The mean µ and standard deviation σ here are represented by
u and std, respectively.
 
−0.0135
 
 
β = µgyro = −0.0285

 (2.8)
 
 
−0.0126
It is relevant to underline that other more sophisticated characterizing methods
exist [15]. For instance, the Allan Variance breaks up IMU error sources into five
basic noise terms: random walk, bias, instability, rate random walk and rate ramp
[16]. Additionally, the Power Spectral Density (PSD) analyzes the spectrum of the
sensor noise covariance to also determine the error sources and see which frequency
15
ranges can actually be modeled as Gaussian noise [17]. Nevertheless, Gaussian
process modeling has been sufficient for this use case.
2.3 Calibration
Once the sensors have been characterized, a sensor calibration must be performed to
correct for additional offsets. Accelerometer and gyroscope calibrations can simply
rely on characterization data and do not require complex procedures. Calibrating
a magnetometer demands deeper mathematical knowledge and least-squares like
problem solving in order to remove soft- and hard-iron offsets.
2.3.1 Accelerometer and Gyroscope Calibration
Accelerometer calibration is carried out by taking advantage of it stationary con-
dition properties. That is, accelerometer data magnitude or norm should always
be 1g. In reality, this is not likely to happen because of measurement noise.
Hence, an scaling factor acalib can be approximated from the mean values µacc =

µaccx µaccy µaccz , obtained after the characterization process. As a result, quasi-
unit norm corrected acceleration values â are obtained from
q
2 2
||ass || = acalib ||ãss || = acalib ã2x + ã2y + ã2z = 1 (2.9)
which yields
1 1
acalib ≈ =p 2 (2.10)
||µacc ||2 µx + µ2y + µ2z
16
and finally
â = (acalib ) ã (2.11)
Although more elaborated calibration methods are available for high precision
accelerometers [18], this approach has lead to accurate results in our work. The gyro-
scope, calibration is as simple as removing the bias component β = µgyro estimated
during characterization (Equation 2.12). Thus, gyroscope corrected measurements
can be approximated to be zero at stationary conditions if the noise is neglected.
ŵ = w̃ − β (2.12)
ŵss = 0 + = ≈ 0 (2.13)
2.3.2 Magnetometer Calibration
Magnetometer calibration aims to get rid of hard-iron and soft-iron offsets by es-
timating 3x3 rotation matrix W and vector V defined in Equation 2.6. These
components should be then applied inversely to remove the offsets and calibrate
compass data [19].
b̂ = W−1 (b̃ − V) (2.14)
17
For the purpose of visually comparing uncalibrated and calibrated data, magne-
tometer locus is defined as b̂T b̂. Figure 2.9 illustrates the locus of some compass
measurements before calibration. Note that an ellipsoidal fit has been superimposed
into the measurements space.
T
T −1 −1
b̂ b̂ = W (b̃ − V) W (b̃ − V) = B 2 (2.15)
Figure 2.9: Locus of uncalibrated raw magnetometer measurements under a strong

hard-iron and soft-iron environment with optimum ellipsoidal fit superimposed.
Looking at the general expression of an ellipsoid centered at R0 , shape defined
by symmetric matrix A and size set by constant k (see Equation 2.16), the fit for
T
magnetometer data is carried out with R0 = V, A = W−1 W−1 = AT and size

18
defined by the geomagnetic field magnitude B. Thanks to the symmetric property
of matrix A, the soft-iron offset matrix results in W−1 = A1/2 .
T
R − R0 A R − R0 = k (2.16)
It turns out that if V and W−1 are computed from the ellipsoidal fit and applied
to compass measurements as defined in Equation 2.15, the modified locus can be
superimposed by a sphere centered at origin (R0 = 0) and the geomagnetic field
magnitude B as the radius. Below, Figure 2.10 shows the locus transformation.
Figure 2.10: Transformation from uncalibrated locus to calibrated locus with opti-
mum spherical fit superimposed
Whereas the described procedure corrects for both soft-iron and hard-iron offsets,
the observed scenarios in this case have empirically shown that hard-iron effects dom-
inate over soft-iron effects in most cases. Consequently, a simplified four-parameter
19
calibration has been designed with Equation 2.15 as a reference, assuming an iden-
tity soft-iron offset matrix (W−1 = I).
b̂T b̂ = (b̃ − V)T (b̃ − V) = B 2 (2.17)
b̃T b̃ − 2b̃T V + VT V − B 2 = 0 (2.18)
If the residual error r for the i-th measurement is considered, the main goal of
T
this approach is to minimize r while fitting the four parameters (V = Vx Vy Vz
and B) from a series of M magnetometer measurements. Essentially, this becomes
a least squares problem. This residual of the ith measurement is
r[i] = b̃2x [i] + b̃2y [i] + b̃2z [i] − 2b̃x [i]Vx − 2b̃y [i]Vy − 2b̃z [i]Vz + Vx2 + Vy2 + Vz2 − B 2 (2.19)
which can be written as
 
 2Vx 
 
 

 2Vy


2 2 2

r[i] = b̃x [i] + b̃y [i] + b̃z [i] − b̃x [i] b̃y [i] b̃z [i] 1 
  (2.20)


 2V z


 
 
2 2 2 2
B − Vx − Vy − Vz
or
20
      
 r[0]   b̃2x [0] + b̃2y [0] + b̃2z [0]
  b̃x [0] b̃y [0] b̃z [0] 1 2Vx 
      
      
 r[1]   b̃2 [1] + b̃2 [1] + b̃2 [1]   b̃ [1] b̃y [1] b̃z [1] 1
 2Vy 
x
= x y z
− (2.21)
     
      
      
 ...   ...   . . .  2V 
      z 
      
      
2 2 2 2 2 2 2
r[M − 1] b̃x [M − 1] + b̃y [M − 1] + b̃z [M − 1] b̃x [M − 1] b̃y [M − 1] b̃z [M − 1] 1 B − Vx − Vy − Vz
Typically, around M = 10 measurements at different angles will suffice to achieve
reliable calibration parameters. It is necessary to remark that such measurements
need to be at different orientations. That is why the sensor generally is moved in an
eight shape while magnetometer calibration data is saved. Returning to the residual
error definition, Equation 2.21 can also be rewritten in compressed matrix notation,
if Y, X and ν are defined as follows.
r = Y − Xν (2.22)
where
   
2 2 2
 r[0]   b̃x [0] + b̃y [0] + b̃z [0] 
   
   
 r[1]   b̃2 [1] + b̃2 [1] + b̃2 [1] 
   x y z 
r=


 Y=


 (2.23)
 ...   ... 
   
   
   
r[M − 1] b̃2x [M − 1] + b̃2y [M − 1] + b̃2z [M − 1]
and
21
   
 b̃x [0] b̃y [0] b̃z [0] 1  2Vx 
   
   
 b̃ [1] b̃ [1] b̃ [1] 1   2Vy 
 x y z   
X=


 ν=

 (2.24)


 ... 


 2Vz 

   
   
b̃x [M − 1] b̃y [M − 1] b̃z [M − 1] 1 B 2 − Vx2 − Vy2 − Vz2
Next, the sum of squares of residuals P = ||r||2 = rT r is minimized. This is a
well known least squares optimization problem that has a closed form solution [20].
The sum of square of residuals is
T
P = ||r||2 = rT r = r2 [0] + r2 [1] + ... + r2 [M − 1] = Y − Xν

Y − Xν (2.25)
and the minimization of it respect to ν yields
−1
ν = XT X XT Y (2.26)
   
V1  ν1 
   
  1  q
V = V2  = 
 
ν2 
 B= ν3 + Vx2 + Vy2 + Vz2 (2.27)
  2  
   
V3 ν3

In the case of a test scenario with M = 20 we obtained V = 13.4347 10.5466 −70.6098
and B = 60.3417 and all compass measurements have been automatically calibrated
to get b̂ according to Equation 2.14 (recall that W−1 = I as soft-iron offset is
22
ignored).
Now that all sensors have been carefully and adequately calibrated, more accu-
rate estimations can be obtained. For example, orientation and position estimation
with calibrated sensors will certainly contain much less drift error than estimation
through uncalibrated sensor.
2.4 Hardware
Low-cost but yet accurate IMU boards have been taken into account when choos-
ing the hardware for the sensing process. The popular MPU-9250 IMU has been
selected in our work. Specifically, we have used the breakout designed by Sparkfun
[21], whose System in Package (SiP) combines two different chips: MPU-6500 con-
taining a 3 axis accelerometer plus a 3 axis gyroscope and AK8963 containing a 3
axis magnetometer. Figure 2.11 provides a picture of the actual breakout and the
orientation of the axes for each of the sensors. As shown, the magnetometer has
a different orientation with respect to the accelerometer and gyroscope. Therefore,
data must be correctly interpreted in order to align all the measurements.
Different sampling frequencies and full-scale ranges can be configured. Table
2.1 summarizes all the possible full-scale ranges and frequencies for each sensor. It
is worth mentioning that with higher sampling rates and wider full-scale ranges, a
more responsive sensing is achieved but less accurate values are measured. This is
mainly because the MPU-9250 is composed of 16-bit Analog-to-Digital Converters
(ADCs) for digitizing all 9 axes. The board is designed to connect a microcontroller
23
Figure 2.11: MP-9250 breakout, showing all axes orientation for each sensor.
through I 2 C communication and requires a power supply between +2.4V and +3.6V
for correct operation.
Accelerometer Gyroscope Magnetometer
± 2g ± 250 ◦ /s
± 4g ± 500 ◦ /s
Full-scale ranges ± 4800 µT
± 8g ± 1000 ◦ /s
± 16g ± 2000 ◦ /s
8 Hz
Sampling rates 4-1000 Hz 4-1000 Hz
100 Hz
Table 2.1: Full-scale range and sampling rate options of the MPU-9250.
For the sake of achieving a balanced trade-off between accuracy and responsive-
ness, a sampling rate of 100 Hz has been chosen for the accelerometer, gyroscope and
magnetometer. Moreover, the full-scale ranges have been defined as ± 4g, ± 500◦ /s
and ±4800µT, respectively.
In our solution, connection and communication between the IMU, the micro-
controller and the PC has been set up. Specifically, an Arduino Bluno Nano [22]
24
has been selected as the microcontroller, due to its fast deployment and simplicity
for prototyping purposes. With respect to the PC, Matlab has been employed as
the processing platform. While the PC and the Arduino currently communicate via
serial port, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) connection could be established in the
future. Even the microcontroller could be further programmed to support all the
processing on-board.
25
3. Data Processing
Once the IMU sensors have been properly calibrated, data is ready to be processed
and estimate parameters that will allow to detect and classify human activity pat-
terns. This section describes the analysis and processing carried out to estimate
orientation, linear acceleration, linear velocity and position of the headset. Some
of these parameters are then used as features in the pattern recognition stage in
Section 4.
3.1 Orientation Estimation
Different algorithms have been compared and implemented in order to obtain angle
information of the IMU. Equation 2.5 in Section 2 shows that gyroscope measure-
ments are not sufficient for the estimation of the sensor orientation in three dimen-
sions due to accumulation of drift over time. Consequently, sensor fusion algorithms
that combine gyroscope, accelerometer and magnetometer data, and compensate
drift are required.
In the literature, we find that Euler angle and Quaternion based methods have
been primarily highlighted [23], [24]. Besides, complementary filter and Multiplica-
26
tive Extended Kalman Filter (MEKF) implementations have been distinguished
inside Quaternion based estimation. Thus, all the three methods (Euler angles,
quaternion-based complementary filter and quaternion-based MEKF estimation)
have been studied, implemented and applied, to finally be capable of performing
a thorough comparison through theoretical but also practical results.
3.1.1 Euler Angles Estimation
Leonhard Euler (15 April 1707 - 18 September 1783), the swiss mathematician,
physicist, astronomer, logician and engineer introduced the Euler angles to describe
the orientation of a rigid body with respect to a reference coordinate frame. Ba-
sically, he claimed that any three-dimensional orientation can be achieved by the
composition of three elemental rotations, one rotation around each axis. Further-
more, an (Euler) angle can be assigned to each rotation. The rotation angle around
X axis is the roll angle, the rotation angle around Y axis is the pitch angle, and the
rotation angle around Z axis is the yaw angle. Euler angles are also usually denoted
as φ (roll), θ (pitch) and ψ (yaw) and can be defined in the local, i.e., body reference
frame (Figure 3.1) [25].
There are many factors that need to be taken into account and many challenges
that must be addressed when estimating Euler angles from IMU data. Due to
inherent sensor characteristics, roll and pitch angles derived from accelerometer
data and yaw angle derived from magnetometer data are employed to compensate
the drift generated by the gyroscope in the integration phase. Magnetometer data is
required because the accelerometer is only able to estimate roll and pitch angles. The
27
Figure 3.1: Euler angles roll (φ), pitch (θ) and yaw (ψ).
explanation for this is that at rest measurements are always the same when there
is no linear acceleration, no matter which the actual yaw angle is. For example,
T
when the Z axis is aligned with the gravity, ãss ≈ 0 0 1 for every actual yaw
angle. Consequently, same accelerometer measurement ãss is sensed in the whole
yaw angle range. The same holds for other sensor orientations at rest. That is
why accelerometer cannot perceive yaw angle variations. As a result, magnetometer
yaw angle has to be computed using roll and pitch information and correct drifted
gyroscope yaw angle.
3.1.1.1 Roll and pitch Estimation
The algorithm to estimate roll and pitch from sensed acceleration [26] basically relies
on the assumption that there is no linear acceleration at the starting point and thus
any normalized accelerometer measurement can be related to the gravitational ac-
28
celeration through a rotation matrix. This approximation tends to amplify estimate
errors whenever external accelerations like sensor shake are present at start [27].
However, it is still considered accurate enough. Given that any rotation can be de-
scribed as a composition of roll, pitch and yaw angles rotations, the rotation matrix
can be decomposed as one of six possible sequences of Euler angle rotation matrices
Rx (φ), Ry (θ) and Rz (ψ). Note that due to matrix multiplication properties, every
possible sequence of these rotation matrices gives a different result (see Equation
3.4). In our work, we use the common sequence used in the aerospace field, namely
Rxyz , which first rotates around Z (yaw), then around Y (pitch) and finally around X
(roll). Another reason for choosing Rxyz is that the rotation matrix in Equation 3.2
depends only on roll and pitch angles. Therefore, the yaw angle does not need to be
estimated. Following Direct Cosine Matrix (DCM) derivation [28], it can be easily
proven that the combinations are not equal and therefore rotations are not commu-
tative. For instance, Equation 3.2 and 3.3 below show that Rxyz 6= Ryxz , while the
same holds for the rest of the sequences. This is one of the main drawbacks of Euler
angles estimation, as each sequence or combination provides a different estimation
result.
     
1 0 0  cosθ 0 −sinθ  cosψ sinψ 0
     
Rx (φ) = Ry (θ) = Rz (ψ) = (3.1)
     
0 cosφ sinφ  0 1 0  −sinψ cosψ 0
     
     
     
0 −sinφ cosφ sinθ 0 cosθ 0 0 1
29
Rxyz = Rx (φ)Ry (θ)Rz (ψ)
 
 cosθcosψ cosθsinψ −sinθ 
 
 
= cosψsinθsinφ − cosφsinψ cosφcosψ + sinθsinφsinψ cosθsinφ


 
 
cosφcosψsinθ + sinφsinψ cosφsinθsinψ − cosψsinφ cosθcosφ
(3.2)
Ryxz = Ry (θ)Rx (φ)Rz (ψ)

 
cosψcosθ − sinθsinφsinψ sinψcosθ + sinθsinφsinψ −sinθcosφ
 
 
=
 −cosφsinψ cosφcosψ sinφ 

 
 
cosθsinφsinψ + sinθcosψ −cosψcosθsinφ + sinψsinθ cosθcosφ
(3.3)
Rxyz 6= Ryxz 6= Rxzy 6= Ryxz 6= Rzxy 6= Rzyx (3.4)
Returning to the initial assumption that requires no linear acceleration at start
(a(l) = 0g), Equation 3.5 relates any normalized accelerometer measurement to

T
(g)
the gravitational acceleration ainit = a = 0 0 1 by means of the selected
rotation matrix sequence Rxyz . Having derived Rainit , it is then straightforward to
solve for roll and pitch angle values, φacc and θacc . It is essential to mention that
roll angle and pitch angle must be limited to [−π, π] and [−π/2, π/2] to avoid
30
duplicate results, respectively. If this action was not taken, multiple roll, pitch
and yaw rotation combinations would lead to the same absolute rotation. As a
result, IMU applications must not exceed these ranges as long as Euler angles are
implemented.
   
0  −sinθ 
   
ã    
= R ainit = Rxyz 0 = cosθsinφ (3.5)
||ã||   
  


   
1 cosθcosφ
   
ãx   −sinθ 
   
ã 1    
=p 2  =
ãy  cosθsinφ
  (3.6)
||ã|| ãx + ã2y + ã2z 
  


   
ãz cosθcosφ
Solving for roll angle φ and pitch angle θ,

−1 ãy
φ = tan ∈ [−π, π] (3.7)
ãz

−ãx −ã
θ= = tan −1
p 2 x 2 ∈ [−π/2, π/2] (3.8)
ãy sinφ + ãz cosφ ãy + ãz
Nonetheless, there are still certain singularities that can cause an unstable es-
timation. This is the case in which both the numerator and denominator inside
the arctangent are zero. While Equation 3.8 never gets to this problem (as it is
not possible to have ã = 0), Equation 3.7 indeed does when ãy = 0 and ãz = 0.
31
Even though there is no perfect solution to this problem, a widely used fix is to
use a tiny fraction µ of the accelerometer measurement in the X axis to prevent the
denominator from becoming zero.

ã
φacc = tan−1
py ∈ [−π, π], µ≈0 (3.9)
sign(ãz ) ã2z + µã2x

−ã
θacc = tan −1
p 2 x 2 ∈ [−π/2, π/2] (3.10)
ãy + ãz
This stable approximation also introduces an additional error when the roll and
pitch angles approach ±90◦ . Figure 3.3 and 3.2 illustrate the absolute difference
|∆φ| between using the fix and not using it when estimating the roll angle in degrees
computed from Equation 3.13. A value of µ = 0.01 has been selected, as a reduced
error is achieved with respect to µ = 0.1.

ã ãy
∆φ = tan −1
py −1
− tan (3.11)
sign(ãz ) ã2z + µã2x ãz
a−b
tan−1 (a) − tan−1 (b) = tan−1 (3.12)
1 + ab
p
2 2
y ãz −
ã ãz + µãx
−1
∆φ = tan p
ã2y + ãz ã2z + µã2x

sinφ cosθcosφ − pcos2 θcos2 φ + µsin2 θ
(3.13)
= tan−1 p
cosθsin2 φ + cosφ cos2 θcos2 φ + µsin2 θ
32
Figure 3.2: Roll angle error surface |∆φ| for µ = 0.01.
Figure 3.3: Roll angle error surface |∆φ| for µ = 0.1.
Apart from that, there are also other singularities that cannot be avoided effi-
ciently when the IMU is not at rest. This happens when two of the three axes are
aligned and driven into a parallel configuration after rotation. In consequence, one
of the degrees of freedom is ”locked” and lost, turning the reference frame into a
two-dimensional space. This effect is called the Gimbal lock [29] and it is actually
one of the main causes of instabilities with Euler angles.
33
The estimated roll and pitch angles have to be unwrapped in order to have a more
realistic representation of the angles. Phase unwrapping basically consists of remov-
ing sudden jumps from the angle signals, exceeding the [−π, π] and [−π/2, π/2]
ranges in this case [30]. Specifically, multiples of ±2π and ±π are added when ab-
solute jumps between consecutive angle estimations are greater than or equal to the
jump tolerance of π radians and π/2 radians for roll and pitch angles, respectively.
Figure 3.4 provides a case with a phase signal before and after phase unwrapping.
Wrapped VS unwrapped phase signal

200
Wrapped signal (◦ )
100
−100
−200
0 2 4 6 8 10
Unwrapped signal (◦ )
600
400
200
−200
0 2 4 6 8 10
t (sec)
Figure 3.4: Phase unwrapping example
At this stage, improved roll and pitch angles can now be computed from ac-
celerometer measurements. Figure 3.5 show an example of the estimation results
when the IMU was moving for 10 seconds. As it can be seen in the plots, the signal
is noisy, but is still accurate at low frequencies.
34
Accelerometer roll and pitch angles
Roll (◦ ) 50
−50
−100
0 2 4 6 8 10
50
Pitch (◦ )
−50
−100
0 2 4 6 8 10
t (sec)
Figure 3.5: Roll and pitch estimation using accelerometer data and Euler angles.
Roll and pitch angles can also be estimated with the integration method pre-
viously described in Equation 2.5 using gyroscope data. However, we can observe
in Figure 3.6 that due to the integration process, the estimations have a drift that
accumulates in time.
Because of that, we use both accelerometer and gyroscope estimation angles and
combine them by a sensor fusion algorithm. Although the Kalman Filter (KF) gives
the most accurate estimation results, the literature frequently uses the complemen-
tary filter [31]. The complementary filter makes a rougher approximation that is
less accurate than the KF but is simple and cheap to implement. Hence, a comple-
mentary filter (defined as follows) has been employed in this case to fuse different
sensor estimations of roll and pitch Euler angles.
35
Gyroscope roll and pitch angles
50
0
Roll (◦ )
−50
−100
0 2 4 6 8 10
50
Pitch (◦ )
−50
−100
0 2 4 6 8 10
t (sec)
Figure 3.6: Roll and pitch estimation using gyroscope data.
     
 φ̂[t + ∆t]   φgyro [t + ∆t]   φacc [t + ∆t] 
  = (1 − α)  +α , 0≤α≤1
     
θ̂[t + ∆t] θgyro [t + ∆t] θacc [t + ∆t]
(3.14)
Looking at the literature and by empirical testing, a filter coefficient value of
α = 0.02 has been used to combine gyroscope and accelerometer roll and pitch
angle estimations as
     
 φ̂[t + ∆t]   φgyro [t + ∆t]   φacc [t + ∆t] 
  = 0.98   + 0.02  , α = 0.02
(3.15)
     
θ̂[t + ∆t] θgyro [t + ∆t] θacc [t + ∆t]
36
In essence, a complementary filter like this improves the accuracy by taking
the best of each sensor: high frequency components from the gyroscope and low
frequency components from the accelerometer. The result based on data from Figure
3.5 and 3.6 are presented in Figure 3.7. As it can be seen, the drift in the gyroscope
angles estimation is successfully removed at the end of the time interval. This helps
to maintain precise estimation results not only in the short but also in the long run.
Improved roll and pitch angle estimation

50
0
Roll (◦ )
−50 Improved roll angle

Gyroscope roll angle
−100
0 2 4 6 8 10
50
Pitch (◦ )
−50 Improved pitch angle

Gyroscope pitch angle
−100
0 2 4 6 8 10
t (sec)
Figure 3.7: Improved roll and pitch estimation after fusing accelerometer and gyro-
scope estimations by a complimentary filter.
3.1.1.2 Yaw Estimation
With the aim of finding a way to estimate the yaw angle using the accelerometer,
most IMUs nowadays come equipped with a magnetometer. While accelerometer
and gyroscope estimations are combined to estimate roll and pitch angle calcula-
tions, yaw angle estimation is commonly improved by fusing magnetometer and
37
gyroscope estimations. It should be noted that both accelerometer and magnetome-
ter estimates are based on the assumption that initially the accelerometer measures
zero linear acceleration (see Equation 3.5) and the X axis of the global coordi-
nate frame is pointing northwards while the local Z axis is pointing downwards
T
(binit = B cosδ 0 sinδ , where binit is in the local reference system, δ is the
inclination and B is the magnitude of the geomagnetic field, as stated in Figure 2.4).
Like that, no external forces and alignment of global and local coordinate frame is
assumed at initial conditions. Again, the Rxyz = Rx (φ)Ry (θ)Rz (ψ) sequence has
been selected as the rotation matrix for the approximated magnetometer measure-
ment model in Equation 3.16, like similarly assumed in Equation 3.5.
 
cosδ 
 
 
 0 +V
b̃ = W R binit + V = W Rx (φ)Ry (θ)Rz (ψ) B   (3.16)
 
 
sinδ
Recall that W and V represent the soft-iron matrix and hard-iron vector off-
sets, respectively, as shown in Equation 2.6. As roll and pitch values are now known,
terms in Equation 3.16 can be rearranged such that only the rotation matrix around
Z (R(ψ)z ) gets multiplied with binit and the rest with R(−φ)x and R(−θ)y . Note
that the hard-iron offset matrix is neglected in our work (W−1 = I), as explained in
Section 2.3.2. Also recall that R(φ)z , R(θ)z and R(ψ)z have already been defined
in Equation 3.1. Solving for yaw, a closed form expression is finally obtained. Look-
ing at Equation 3.19, there is no need to know the value of the geomagnetic field
magnitude B, because this term gets canceled out. A comparison of magnetometer
38
and gyroscope yaw angle estimates can be found in Figure 3.8 and 3.9 below.
 
cosδ 
 
−1
 
Rz (ψ) B  0   = Ry (−θ)Rx (−φ) W (b̃ − V) (3.17)

 
 
sinδ
     
 cosψ Bcosδ   (b̃x − Vx )cosθ + (b̃y − Vy )sinθsinφ + (b̃z − Vz )sinθcosφ   bf x 
     
     
 
−sinψ Bcosδ  = 
 (b̃ y − Vy )cosφ − (b̃ z − Vz )sinφ

 = b 
 fy (3.18)
     
     
   
Bsinδ −(b̃x − Vx )sinθ + (b̃y − Vy )cosθsinφ + (b̃z − Vz )cosθcosφ bf z

−1 −bf y −1 (b̃z − Vz )sinφ − (b̃y − Vy )cosφ
ψmag = tan = tan (3.19)
bf x (b̃x − Vx )cosθ + (b̃y − Vy )sinθsinφ + (b̃z − Vz )sinθcosφ
ψmag ∈ [−π, π] (3.20)
39
Magnetometer yaw angle
200
100
Yaw (◦ )
−100
−200
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
t (sec)
Figure 3.8: Yaw estimation using magnetometer data and Euler angles.
Gyroscope yaw angle

200
100
Yaw (◦ )
−100
−200
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
t (sec)
Figure 3.9: Yaw estimation using gyroscope data.
After unwrapping the estimated yaw angles, the same complementary filter as in
Equation 3.14 is applied, again with a coefficient value of α = 0.02. As previously,
low frequency signal components from the magnetometer and high frequency com-
ponents from the gyroscope are combined together, which results in the removal of
the drift produced by the gyroscope in the yaw angle estimation (see Figure 3.10).
40
ψ̂[t + ∆t] = (1 − α) ψgyro [t + ∆t] + α ψmag [t + ∆t], 0≤α≤1
(3.21)
= 0.98 ψgyro [t + ∆t] + 0.02 ψmag [t + ∆t], α = 0.02
Improved roll and pitch angle estimation

200
Improved yaw angle
100 Gyroscope yaw angle
Roll (◦ )
−100
−200
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
t (sec)
Figure 3.10: Improved yaw estimation after fusing magnetometer and gyroscope
estimations by a complimentary filter.
In summary, an approximate estimation of the IMU 3D orientation by Euler an-
gles is possible, although many limitations exist in the approach. First, the rotation
combinations are not commutative and therefore each sequence gives a different re-
sult. Second, additional errors can be also found due to all the assumptions that are
made throughout the algorithm. Third, there are singularities that lead to Gimbal
lock, losing a degree of freedom. Last but not least, the use of Euler angles is limited
to applications that do not allow exceeding the pitch angle over ±90◦ . Otherwise,
the application becomes unstable. However, Euler angles are still widely popular
because it only involves basic trigonometric and algebraic calculations.
41
3.1.2 Quaternion-based Estimation
Quaternions provide a different and interesting way of dealing with orientation.
While Euler angles describe changes in orientation by three elemental rotations,
quaternions multiply three-dimensional vectors with a certain angle in order to de-
scribe 3D orientations, using an axis-angle representation [32].
Quaternions were invented by William Rowan Hamilton between 1844-1853 [33]
and they are composed by a real component q0 and three complex components q1 i,
q2 j and q3 k. Any quaternion q is said to be a combination of a scalar q0 and complex

T
vector q1 q2 q3 .
q = q0 + q1 i + q2 j + q3 k (3.22)
Due to their abstract nature, many people try to avoid them in the field of at-
titude or orientation estimation. Nevertheless, quaternions offer several advantages
that make them suitable in many applications. Not only in attitude estimation, but
quaternions are employed to solve many computer animation and robotics problems
as well [34].
3.1.2.1 Background
Quaternion algebra differs from conventional linear algebra in certain aspects [35].
Complex symbols i, j and k are not different from the symbol in any complex
number (a+bi). The particularity here comes with the inter-symbol multiplications,
42
as illustrated in Figure 3.11 and defined as
i2 = j 2 = k 2 = −1 (3.23)
ij = k, jk = i, ki = j (3.24)
ji = −k, kj = −i, ik = −j (3.25)
Figure 3.11: Visual representation of complex symbols properties.
Continuing with arithmetic operations, summation between two arbitrary quater-
nions a and b follow the same distributive and associative properties as complex
43
numbers.
a ± b = (a0 + a1 i + a2 j + a3 k) ± (b0 + b1 i + b2 j + b3 k)
(3.26)
= (a0 ± b0 ) + (a1 ± b1 )i + (a2 ± b2 )j + (a3 ± b3 )k
Obviously, commutativity does not hold for all the operations. Even though
summation is commutative, multiplication is not, for example. The quaternion
product between any two arbitrary quaternions a and b is typically represented
with the symbol ⊗ and is not commutative (a ⊗ b 6= b ⊗ a). Scalar multiplications
on the other hand do allow commutations.
a ⊗ b = (a0 + a1 i + a2 j + a3 k)(b0 + b1 i + b2 j + b3 k)
= (a0 b0 − a1 b1 − a2 b2 − a3 b3 )
+ (a0 b1 + a1 b0 + a2 b3 − a3 b2 )i (3.27)
+ (a0 b2 − a1 b3 + a2 b0 + a3 b1 )j
+ (a0 b3 + a1 b2 − a2 b1 − a3 b0 )k
a α b=α a⊗b= a⊗b α (3.28)
Besides, the conjugate is among one of the most commonly used properties. The
conjugate of a quaternion consists in changing the sign of complex terms and is
denoted as q∗ .
q ∗ = q 0 − q1 i − q2 j − q 3 k (3.29)
44
(a ⊗ b)∗ = b∗ ⊗ a∗ (3.30)
Regarding the norm of a quaternion (defined as |q|2 ), it assigns a strictly positive
length or size to the vector formed by quaternion components. It turns out that the
norm of a product is the same as the product of norms.
|q|2 = q ⊗ q∗ (3.31)
|a ⊗ b|2 = a ⊗ b ⊗ (a ⊗ b)∗ = a ⊗ b ⊗ b∗ ⊗ a∗ = |a|2 |b|2 (3.32)
With that in mind, it is also straightforward to compute the inverse of a quater-

q∗
nion q1 , given that 1
q
= |q|2
.
1 q∗ (q0 − q1 i − q2 j − q3 k)
= 2
=
q |q| (q0 + q1 i + q2 j + q3 k)(q0 − q1 i − q2 j − q3 k)
(3.33)
q0 − q1 i − q2 j − q3 k
= 2
q0 + q12 i + q22 j + q32 k
Apart from that, it is very useful to know certain properties of unit quaternions,
namely quaternions with unit norm (|q|2 = 1). The main feature of unit quaternions
is that the product c between two unit quaternions a and b always gives another
unit quaternion. Note that the symbol ⇐⇒ means if and only if in the expressions
below. This is later exploited by estimation algorithms because rotations in fact can
be represented as a multiplication of unit quaternions in time.
45
c = a ⊗ b ⇒ |c|2 = 1 ⇐⇒ |a|2 = |b|2 = 1 (3.34)
1
What is more, the inverse of a unit quaternion q
is the same as the conjugate of
that same quaternion q∗ .
1
= q∗ ⇐⇒ |q|2 = 1 (3.35)
q
In addition, pure quaternion is the term given to a quaternion with only complex
components, i.e. q = q1 i+q2 j +q3 k, and real quaternion is just a quaternion with no
complex components at all (q = q0 ). Moreover, any quaternion might be expressed
in vector notation (q ) or with an angle and a vector (q {α, e}), following the axis-
angle representation.
   
q0   cos α2

   
   
q1  e1 sin α2 
   
q =   = q {α, e} =  (3.36)
   

   
q2  e2 sin α 
   2
   
   
q3 e3 sin α2
46
α = cos−1 (2q0 )
 
q1
 sin α2 
 
  (3.37)
e =  q2α 
 
 sin 2 
 
 
q3
sin α2
T
The same way sensor data, e.g. accelerometer data ã = ãx ãy ãz , can be
referenced in a local (L) or global (G) coordinate frame, corresponding quaternion
(ãq ) might be also defined in any reference system. For instance, accelerometer data
is denoted as L ãq if it is referenced in the local coordinate frame L.
 
 0 
  

 
0  L ãx 

L

ãq = 
 = 
   (3.38)
L L ã 
ã  y
 
 
L
ãz
Notation LG q is used to indicate that a given quaternion expresses an arbitrary
3D orientation of the global frame with respect to the local frame. Conversely, the
conjugate quaternion LG q ∗ may be employed to represent the orientation of the local
frame with respect to the global frame (G

L q ).
47
 
q0 
 
 
q 
L G ∗
 1
Gq = L q =   (3.39)
 
q 
 2
 
 
q3
 
 q0 
 
 
−q 
G L ∗
 1
L q = Gq =  (3.40)
 

−q 
 2
 
 
−q3
Whenever a rotation takes place, this can be expressed by a quaternion mul-
B
tiplication. Given coordinate frames A, B and C, if quaternion Aq describes the
orientation of frame A with respect to B and quaternion C

B q describes the orienta-
tion of frame B with respect to C, the orientation C

A q of frame A with respect to C
can be obtained by quaternion multiplication.
C C B
Aq = Bq ⊗ Aq (3.41)
Therefore, if local accelerometer data (L ã) and a quaternion expressing the rela-
tionship between the global and local frames are available, then we can express the
data in the global coordinate frame using the product in Equation 3.42. Inversely,
one can always return the measurements to the local reference system with Equation
3.43. It is necessary to mention that all the quaternions in this expression must be
48
unit quaternions to avoid orientation quaternion going to infinity.
G G L G ∗ L ∗ L L
ãq = Lq ⊗ ãq ⊗ Lq = Gq ⊗ ãq ⊗ Gq (3.42)
L L G L ∗ G ∗ G G
ãq = Gq ⊗ ãq ⊗ Gq = Lq ⊗ ãq ⊗ Lq (3.43)
Any unit quaternion expressing coordinate frame transformations in Equation
3.42 and Equation 3.43 can be associated with the corresponding rotation matrix
L

R Gq .
G G
L L ∗
L
ãq = R Lq ãq = R Gq ãq (3.44)
L L
G G ∗
G
ãq = R Gq ãq = R Lq ãq (3.45)
L

Where rotation matrix R Gq is derived from Direct Cosine Matrix (DCM)
and convention from Equation 3.2 (derivation can be found in [36]).
 
q02
+ − − q12 q22 q32 2(q1 q2 − q0 q3 ) 2(q1 q3 + q0 q2 ) 
 
 
R LG q =  2(q1 q2 + q0 q3 )

q02 − q12 + q22 − q32 (3.46)

 2(q2 q3 − q0 q1 ) 
 
 
2 2 2 2
2(q1 q3 − q0 q2 ) 2(q2 q3 + q0 q1 ) q 0 − q1 − q2 + q 3
49
Given that LG q is a unit quaternion,
 
1 − 2(q22 + q32 ) 2(q1 q2 − q0 q3 ) 2(q1 q3 + q0 q2 ) 
 
 
R LG q =  2(q1 q2 + q0 q3 ) 1 − 2(q12 + q32 ) 2(q2 q3 − q0 q1 )  ⇐⇒ |LG q |2 = 1
 
 
 
 
2(q1 q3 − q0 q2 ) 2(q2 q3 + q0 q1 ) 1 − 2(q12 + q22 )
(3.47)
To finish with the quaternions review, it is fundamental to define the direct

T
relationship between Euler angles φ θ ψ and unit quaternions.
     

R32 2(q2 q3 +q0 q1 )
 φ  tan−1 R33  tan−1 1−2(q12 +q22 ) 
     
     
     
 θ  =  sin−1 R  = sin−1 2(q q − q q )  ⇐⇒ |LG q |2 = 1 (3.48)
   33   1 3 0 2 
     
     
     
ψ tan−1 R 21
R11
tan−1 2(q 1 q2 +q0 q3 )
1−2(q 2 +q 2 )
2 3
With all the background materials covered, it is time to delve into the estimation
algorithm [37]. Equal to Euler angles method, accelerometer is used to compensate
gyroscope drift in pitch and roll angles. This is then complemented with the mag-
netometer, which corrects drift in the gyroscope yaw angle.
3.1.2.2 Gyroscope Quaternion
First of all, before correction quaternions derived from the earth field sensors (ac-
celerometer and magnetometer) are applied, the gyroscope quaternion needs to be
50
updated. For that, gyroscope data quaternion L w̃q has to be defined from original

L
data w̃ = w̃x w̃y w̃z rad/sec, which is actually measured in the local frame L.

L
w̃q = 0 w̃x w̃y w̃z (3.49)
Apart from that, the derivative of the forward gyroscope unit quaternion G
L q̇ w,tk
is well defined in the literature (derivation can be found in [38]).
G 1 G L
L q̇ w,tk = L q tk−1 ⊗ w̃q,tk (3.50)
2
However, there is special interest in the inverse unit quaternion derivative LG q̇ w,tk =
G
∗
L q̇ w,tk , as this specifies the global reference frame with respect to the local frame.
L G
∗ 1 G L
∗
G q̇ w,tk = L q̇ w,tk = L q tk−1 ⊗ w̃q,tk
2
1 L
∗ G
∗
= w̃q,tk ⊗ L q tk−1 (3.51)
2
1 L L
=− w̃q,tk ⊗ G q tk−1
2
Now that the expression of the inverse unit gyroscope quaternion derivative has
been formulated, integration needs to be carried out to obtain gyroscope orientation
L
quaternion G q w,tk by using the inverse unit quaternion derivative, sampling time
∆t and previous corrected orientation quaternion LG q tk−1 . Finally, the quaternion is
normalized to make sure that the unit quaternion property is satisfied every time
step. Note that the initial corrected orientation quaternion LG q w,t0 is simply a real
51
unit quaternion q I .
L
G q w,tk =LG q tk−1 +LG q̇ w,tk ∆t (3.52)
L
L G q w,tk
G q w,tk = L
(3.53)
|G q w,tk |2

L
G q t0 = qI = 1 0 0 0 (3.54)
At any given time, Equation 3.48 and 3.47 can be sequentially applied to the
gyroscope orientation quaternion LG q w,tk to get gyroscope Euler angles. As this itself
ˆ L q acc,t and filtered

is drifted, filtered accelerometer error (or delta) quaternion ∆ G k
ˆ L q mag,t are estimated to form the filtered angle

magnetometer error quaternion ∆ G k
error quaternion ∆ ˆ L q mag,t and rotate the gyroscope angle

ˆ L q acc,t ⊗ ∆
ˆ Lqt = ∆
G k G k G k
quaternion LG q w,tk to the corrected and improved orientation quaternion LG q tk .
L L ˆ L q w,t =
⊗∆ L ˆ L q acc,t ⊗ ∆
⊗∆ ˆ L q mag,t
G q tk = G q w,tk G k G q w,tk G k G k
(3.55)
3.1.2.3 Accelerometer Error Quaternion
The main point of the accelerometer error quaternion ∆LG q acc,tk is to correct roll
and pitch orientation of the drifted gyroscope angle quaternion. Additionally, the
correction can be further improved with a complementary or Kalman filter, which
ˆ L q acc,t (note the difference between

give a filtered accelerometer error quaternion ∆ G k
52
ˆ L q acc,t ). The accelerometer corrected quaternion is denoted as
∆LG q acc,tk and ∆ G k
L
G q acc,tk . For simplicity and convenience, time variable t has been removed from all
the quaternions and accelerometer measurements ã are considered to be normalized
from this point on.
L L ˆ L q acc
⊗∆
G q acc = Gq w G (3.56)
T
Furthermore, given the normalized local measurement L ãq = L ãx L ãy L ãz
T
and its quaternion defined as L ãq = 0 L ãx L ãy L ãz , the global acceleration
value G ã may be computed by transforming the local frame measurements to the
global reference system using the gyroscope angle quaternion or its respective rota-
L ∗

tion matrix R Gq w
. Then, this global measurement is approximated to the global
T
G
true gravity vector g = 0 0 1 through the accelerometer error quaternion.
Below, Equation 3.57, 3.58 and 3.59 include both rotation matrix domain (left) and
quaternions domain (right).
G L ∗ L G L ∗ L L

ã = R Gq w ã → ãq = Gq w ⊗ ãq ⊗ Gq w (3.57)
G
G
ã = R ∆LG q acc g → G
ãq = ∆LG q acc ⊗ G
gq ⊗ ∆LG q ∗acc (3.58)
53
   
 0  0
   
G
 ãx  0
   
   
    G ã  0
 x
 = ∆G q acc ⊗   ⊗ ∆LG q ∗acc
  L
  L
 
G ã  = R ∆G q acc 0 →  (3.59)
 y      
    G ã  0
     y  
G
ãz 1 



 
 
G
ãz 1
As expected, the system of equations in 3.59 is undetermined and has infinite so-
lutions (see Equation 3.60). This is due to the fact that accelerometer cannot detect
rotations around the Z axis (yaw angle), as explained in Section 3.1.1.1. Therefore,
the solutions can actually be restricted to a finite number by choosing ∆LG q3acc = 0.
Even though this new fully determined system gives four single solutions, two of
them are discarded because they have a negative form and and a third one is the
sign-inverted version of the fourth one. Hence, the last solution is selected with
positive scalar value ∆LG q0acc , presented in Equation 3.62.



2 ∆LG q1acc ∆LG q3acc + ∆LG q2acc ∆LG q0acc = G ãx











2 ∆LG q2acc ∆LG q3acc + ∆LG q0acc ∆LG q1acc = G ãy (3.60)









∆LG q0acc
2
− ∆LG q1acc
2
− ∆LG q2acc
2
− ∆LG q3acc
2
= G ãz


54



2∆LG q2acc ∆LG q0acc = G ãx










−2∆LG q0acc ∆LG q1acc = G ãy ⇐⇒ ∆LG q3acc = 0 (3.61)









∆LG q0acc
2
− ∆LG q1acc
2
− ∆LG q2acc
2
= G
ãz


q T
∆LG qacc = az +1
−√ ay
√ ax
0 ⇐⇒ ∆LG q3acc = 0 (3.62)
2 (2(az +1)) (2(az +1))
Unfortunately, there is a singularity in the expression (when G ãz = −1) that may
affect the stability of the estimation. That is why an alternative solution is sought
by setting ∆LG q2acc = 0 instead of ∆LG q3acc = 0. While the new simplified system
of equations has two different solutions, the one shown in Equation 3.64 is chosen.
This also has a singularity (when G ãz = 1 in this case), so a combination between
solutions in Equation 3.62 and 3.64 is used here (see Equation 3.65).



2∆LG q1acc ∆LG q3acc = G ãx










2∆LG q0acc ∆LG q1acc = G ãy ⇐⇒ ∆LG q2acc = 0 (3.63)









∆LG q0acc
2
− ∆LG q1acc
2
− ∆LG q3acc
2
= G
ãz


q T
∆LG qacc = −√ ay 1−az
0 √ ax ⇐⇒ ∆LG q2acc = 0 (3.64)
(2(1−az )) 2 (2(1−az ))
55
" #T
 q G
ãz ≥ 0



 az +1
−√ ay
√ ax
0 ,
 2 (2(az +1)) (2(az +1))
∆LG qacc = " #T (3.65)

 q
 G
 − √ ay

 1−az
0 √ ax , ãx < 0
(2(1−az )) 2 (2(1−az ))
That is how a closed form solution for the accelerometer error quaternion is
obtained. Specifically, the singularities are avoided by having two different solutions
for the accelerometer error quaternion, depending on the hemisphere in which the
global measurement G ã is pointing.
Before correcting the gyroscope angle quaternion, the accelerometer error quater-
nion is filtered with a complementary filter or a Multiplicative Extended Kalman
ˆ L q acc
filter (see Section 3.1.2.5 and 3.1.2.6, respectively, for final derivations of ∆ G
ˆ L q mag ). As the complementary filter is applied almost identically to both

and ∆ G
the accelerometer and magnetometer error quaternions, it is coherent to explain the
derivation of the magnetometer error quaternion first and delve into the comple-
mentary filter then.
3.1.2.4 Magnetometer Error Quaternion
Essentially, the magnetometer error quaternion takes care of correcting yaw ori-
entation from the gyroscope angle quaternion. In this case, this quaternion is
L
later filtered to rotate accelerometer corrected quaternion (recall that G q acc =
L ˆ L q acc ) and remove gyroscope yaw angle drift with filtered error quater-
⊗∆
Gq w G
ˆ L q mag . Like with acceleration, sensed magnetic field b̃ is normalized.

nion ∆ G
56
L L ˆ L q mag
⊗∆
Gq = G q acc G (3.66)
Whereas accelerometer local measurements are transformed from local to global
frame with the gyroscope angle quaternion, magnetometer local measurements (L b̃ =

T T
L
L
b̃x L b̃y L b̃z with quaternion b̃q = 0 L b̃x L b̃y L b̃z ) are rotated with the
inverse accelerometer corrected quaternion LG q ∗acc to get a corrected global measure-
Gc
ment b̃, defined in the global coordinate frame corrected by the accelerometer
(Gc ). Next, the relationship between the corrected global magnetic field measure-
G
ment and the Xpositive -Z semiplane Π(x+ z) is defined through the magnetometer
error quaternion. Like that, the heading is enforced to the magnetic north (as-
sumed in the global X axis). Again, Equation 3.67, 3.68 and 3.69 have been for-
mulated in rotation matrix domain (left) and quaternion domain (right). Note that
q
Gc b̃ 2 + Gc b̃ 2 .

Γ= x y
Gc L ∗
L Gc L ∗ L L
b̃ = R G q acc b̃ b̃q = G q acc ⊗ b̃q ⊗ G q acc (3.67)
Gc
R ∆LG q mag b̃ ∈ G
Π(x+ z) ∆LG q mag ⊗ Gc
b̃q ⊗ ∆LG q ∗mag ∈ G
Πq(x+ z) (3.68)
57
   
 0   0 
   
Gc
√
 b̃x   Γ 
   
  √ 
    Gc b̃   Γ
L
    L
 x L ∗
 
Gc b̃y  =  0  ∆G q mag
R ∆G q mag     ⊗

 ⊗ ∆G q mag = 
 
 (3.69)

    Gc b̃   0 
     y  
Gc Gc
b̃z b̃z 







Gc Gc
b̃z b̃z
When trying to solve for ∆LG q mag , it is desired that the magnetometer error
quaternion only affects yaw angle. Consequently, ∆LG q1mag = ∆LG q2mag = 0 can be
set, enforcing the quaternion to have a single degree of freedom (around Z axis). In
that way, the shortest rotation solution (shown in Equation 3.72) is then selected
among all possible solutions.
T
∆LG q mag = ∆LG q0mag 0 0 ∆LG q3mag (3.70)



2
∆LG q0mag − ∆LG q3mag
2
= Gc b̃x









√

2∆ L
q 0mag ∆L
q 3mag Γ = Gc b̃y (3.71)
 G G







 Gc
 ∆LG q0mag
2
+ ∆LG q3mag
2
b̃z = Gc b̃z


√ T
√
Gc b̃
∆LG qmag = Γ + Gc b̃x Γ
√ 0 0 √ y
√ (3.72)
2Γ 2(Γ + Gc b̃
x Γ)
Although singularities exist when Gc b̃y = 0 and Gc b̃x < 0, a combined solution can
58
again cope with potential system instabilities. Hereafter, Equation 3.73 represents
the closed form solution of the magnetometer error quaternion.
" #T
 √ √
Gc
b̃x ≥ 0
 Gc b̃
Γ + Gc b̃x Γ ,
√
 y


 √
2Γ
0 0 Gc b̃
√
2(Γ + x Γ)
∆LG qmag = " #T (3.73)


 Gc b̃ Gc b̃ Gc
 √

 y
√ 0 0 √ y
√
, b̃x < 0
2(Γ − Gc b̃ Γ) 2(Γ − Gc b̃ Γ)
x x
Now that accelerometer and magnetometer error quaternions can be calculated,
it is always convenient to filter them in order to improve the accuracy of the esti-
mates. The purpose of filtering error quaternions in the algorithm is to fuse together
gyroscope orientation quaternion with acceleration and magnetic field readings so
that the estimation becomes robust against high noise levels and time-varying bi-
ases. In this case, the performance of a quaternion-based complementary filter and
a Multiplicative Extended Kalman Filter have been analyzed and compared.
3.1.2.5 Complementary Filter
On one hand, the complementary filter with quaternions aims to provide a simple
fusion method to correct the drift present in the gyroscope orientation as a result of
the constant integration over time. The logic behind remains the same as with the
complementary filter applied with the Euler angles method. It is considered to be
a cheap filtering process, with low complexity and computational cost, robust and
with fast convergence. What is more, it is highly responsive to aggressive movements
of the sensors. This features make it a suitable algorithm for embedded systems.
59
Basically, the filter itself consists on removing high frequency noise from the
accelerometer and magnetometer error quaternions, ∆LG qacc and ∆LG qmag [39]. In
this whole section ∆LG qacc is used in the derivations as an example, although the same
holds exactly for ∆LG qmag as well. There are many ways to achieve the mentioned
filtering effect, one of the most effective ones being Spherical Linear intERPolation
(SLERP) with an identity quaternion qI . However, the complexity and accuracy of
SLERP may not be required at all times, specially when the error quaternions are
small due to the reduced deviation of the measurements from the real gravity or the
Xpositive -Z semiplane. For such cases, just Linear intERPolation (LERP) is enough.
Figure 3.12 provides a pictorial representation of LERP and SLERP.
Figure 3.12: Simplified 2D comparison between Linear intERPolation (LERP) and

Spherical Linear IntERPolation (SLERP). Note that in this case q a = ∆LG qacc or
¯ L qacc or ∆
∆LG qmag , q b = qI and q int = ∆ ¯ L qmag used below.
G G
Once more, the selection of the technique is becomes a tradeoff between efficiency
and accuracy. While LERP is very efficient but less accurate, SLERP is well know
for its precision at a higher computational complexity. Thus, a relevant metric that
allows to switch between techniques becomes essential in this context. In this case,
60
when the angle between the error quaternion and the identity quaternion Ω is small
than a certain threshold λ, LERP is employed (Ω < λ). Otherwise, if the angle is big
enough (Ω ≥ λ), SLERP is implemented for a better accuracy. The angle between
two quaternions can be easily computed from the relationship of the cosine angle
and dot product. A value of λ = 0.436 rad = 25◦ has been set, following literature
reference [39].
 
1
 
 
0
 
qI =  
  (identity quaternion) (3.74)
0
 
 
 
0
cosΩ = ∆LG qacc qI = ∆LG q0acc q0I + ∆LG q1acc q1I + ∆LG q2I q2acc + ∆LG q3acc q3I (3.75)
Ω = cos−1 ∆LG q0acc q0I + ∆LG q1acc q1I + ∆LG q2I q2acc + ∆LG q3acc q3I

(3.76)
Below, the expressions of LERP and SLERP can be found in Equation 3.77 and
3.78 [40], respectively, where α ∈ [0, 1] is the gain that characterizes the cutoff
frequency of the filter [41]. After interpolation, the resulting interpolated error
¯ L qacc is normalized to obtain the filtered error quaternion ∆

quaternion ∆ ˆ L qacc .
G G
61
¯ L qacc = (1 − α)qI + α∆L qacc
∆ (3.77)
G G

¯ L sin (1 − α)Ω sin αΩ L
∆G qacc = qI + ∆G qacc (3.78)
sinΩ sinΩ
¯L
ˆ LG qacc = ∆G qacc
∆ (3.79)
¯ L qacc ||
||∆ G
Nevertheless, establishing a constant filter gain sets a clear constraint in the com-
plementary filter. For example, whenever a high movement acceleration is present,
the orientation quaternion is estimated using a false assumption, fact that may
cause meaningful critical estimation errors. That is why an adaptive algorithm has
been specifically designed for gain α. In essence, the goal is to disable the filtering
when the norm of raw accelerometer measurements ||ã|| deviates significantly with
respect to the true gravity norm value ||G g|| = 1g. At static conditions, the error
quaternions get fully filtered. Based on this, a gravity error magnitude eg and a gain
factor function f (eg ) have been defined. This adaptive gain factor then multiplies
the static value of the gain denoted as ᾱ. The static gain should be set according
to the value that gives optimal results when the IMU is at stationary conditions.
| ||L ã|| − ||G g|| |

eg = (3.80)
||G g||
62
α = α(eg ) = ᾱf (eg ) (3.81)
Regarding the definition of the gain factor, this is a continuous function de-
pendent on a low and a high threshold (TL and TH ). It is equal to one when the
magnitude error is lower than the lower threshold and equal to zero when eg is
higher than the upper threshold. For all the rest of values, a continuous linear func-
tion is fit. Equation 3.82 shows the formal definition of the gain factor and Figure
3.13 illustrates the actual gain factor function f( eg ) used for the accelerometer and
magnetometer error quaternion filtering.


1, eg ≤ TL









f (eg ) = 1 − eg −TL
, TL < eg < TH (3.82)

 TH −TL






0, eg ≥ TH

Gain factor in function of the gravity error magnitude

TL = 0.0005
1
Gain factor
0.5
TH = 0.01
0
0 0.005 0.01 0.015

Gravity error magnitude
Figure 3.13: Gain factor function f (eg ) for the accelerometer and magnetometer
error quaternion complementary filter.
63
In general, it has been observed that the estimation is quite sensitive to the fil-
tering, so low gains have been set. In case of the accelerometer complementary filter,
a static gain of ᾱ = 0.2 has been set. For the magnetometer complementary filter,
a static gain an order of magnitude lower has been defined (ᾱ = 0.02). Speaking
about the thresholds, both filters have a low threshold of TL = 0.0005 and a high
threshold of TH = 0.01.
Thanks to this algorithm, the gyroscope angle quaternion is corrected once the
filtered accelerometer and magnetometer error quaternions have been computed.
Lastly, Euler angles are obtained from the estimated orientation quaternion using
Equation 3.47 and 3.48. As a summary, a block diagram with all the fundamental
quaternions computations and complementary filtering processes has been included
in Figure 3.15. A test sample of the algorithm with a duration of 20 seconds can
be found in Figure 3.14, where the estimated orientation angles and gyroscope an-
gles are compared. It is clearly appreciated how the drift is removed in the final
estimation.
ˆ Lqt = ∆
∆ ˆ L q acc,t ⊗ ∆
ˆ L q mag,t (3.83)
G k G k G k
L L ˆ L q w,t =
⊗∆ L ˆ L q acc,t ⊗ ∆
⊗∆ ˆ L q mag,t
G q tk = G q w,tk G k G q w,tk G k G k
(3.84)
64
 
1 − 2(q22 + q32 ) 2(q1 q2 − q0 q3 ) 2(q1 q3 + q0 q2 ) 
 
L
 
R G q tk =  2(q1 q2 + q0 q3 ) 1 − 2(q1 + q3 ) 2(q2 q3 − q0 q1 ) 
2 2 (3.85)
 
 
 
 
2(q1 q3 − q0 q2 ) 2(q2 q3 + q0 q1 ) 1 − 2(q12 + q22 )
     

R 2(q2 q3 +q0 q1 )
 φ  tan−1 R32 33
 tan−1 1−2(q12 +q22 ) 
     
     
     
 θ  =  sin−1 R  = sin−1 2(q q − q q )  (3.86)
   33   1 3 0 2 
     
     
     
ψ tan−1 R 21
R11
tan−1 2(q 1 q2 +q0 q3 )
1−2(q 2 +q 2 )
2 3
Improved roll, pitch and yaw angle estimation

100
Roll (◦ )
−100
−200
0 5 10 15 20
50
Pitch (◦ )
−50
−100
0 5 10 15 20
50
Yaw (◦ )
−50
−100
0 5 10 15 20
t (sec)
Figure 3.14: Roll, pitch and yaw angles estimation (colored lines) with quaternion-
based complementary filter compared to gyroscope angle estimation (dashed line).
65
Figure 3.15: Block diagram of orientation estimation process through quaternions
and complementary filter.
3.1.2.6 Multiplicative Extended Kalman Filter
The Kalman Filter (KF) provides optimal sensor fusion method for linear systems.
The filtering process can be divided into two parts: the prediction or time update
and the estimation or measurement update. The prediction step is mainly based on
the dynamic model of the sensor body, whereas the measurement step focuses on a
estimation algorithm combining prediction and measurements. With respect to non-
linear systems, the Extended Kalman Fitler (EKF) offers an approximate solution.
The Multiplicative Extended Kalman Filter (MEKF) relies on multiplication rather
than addition in the measurement update [42].
Generally, compared to the complementary filter, the MEKF requires more in-
depth knowledge about estimation theory. This makes it more complex and harder
to implement. Several matrix multiplications are necessary every time step as well,
so the computational cost may be high. Nonetheless, there is an improved estima-
66
tion and robustness against vibrations. Tthe Kalman Filter approach is typically
considered a really solid algorithm in the scientific community [43].
Speaking about attitude estimation, the state vector x of the MEKF is usually
defined by error quaternions, while the gyroscope angle quaternion is propagated
separately. Here we follow a similar strategy but the error vector ae = αe (with
||e|| = 1) is employed instead of the error quaternion (note that ae does not repre-
sent accelerometer data error but the error vector derived from a delta quaternion).
Like that, only three state variables are required, instead of four the variables that
compose a quaternion. The relationship between a delta quaternion and its corre-
sponding error vector and vice versa are defined as
   
ˆ L ||ae ||
∆G q0acc   cos( 2 ) 
   
   
ˆ q1acc   xe sin( ||a ||
 L  a e

∆ G )
  ||ae || 2
ˆ q acc {α, e} = 
L
 
∆G 
=
 

 (3.87)
ˆL   aye ||ae || 
∆G q2acc   ||a || sin( 2 )
   e 
   
   
ˆ L aze ||ae ||
∆G q3acc ||ae ||
sin( 2 )

∆ ˆ L q2acc ∆
ˆ L q1acc ∆ ˆ L q3acc
G G G
ˆ L q0acc )
x = ae = αe = 2cos (∆ −1
(3.88)
G
ˆ L q0acc )

sin cos−1 (∆ G
As with the complementary filter, all the derivations are shown with the ac-
ˆ L q acc ) example , although the magnetometer error

celerometer error quaternion (∆ G
ˆ L q mag also shows the exact same behavior.

quaternion ∆ G
Starting with the prediction step, the dynamic system of equations needs to be
defined first. This yields the differential equations of the state space variables ae
67
and covariance matrix P, where G is the cross-correlation matrix, F is the Jacobian
and Q is the covariance of the stationary, zero-mean process noise W(t).


ẋ = f (x, u, t) + GW(t)









Standard EKF prediction step = Ṗ = FP + PFT + GQGT (3.89)







F = ∂f (x,u,t)


∂x


ȧe = −w̃ × ae + GW(t)












Ṗ = FP + PFT + GQGT






Error vector quaternion



=   (3.90)

MEKF prediction step




 0 w̃z −w̃y 
  

  
∂f (x,u,t)
  
F = ∂x = −ŵ = −w̃z

0 w̃

  

 x 

  

  

  
w̃y −w̃x 0


Considering that W(t) is zero-mean and that the cross correlation matrix G = 1,
i.e. state space variables (axe , aye and aze ) are uncorrelated, the predicted values
âe (−) and covariance matrix P(−) can be calculated through integration. At this
point, gyroscope angle quaternion LG q w,tk needs to be updated and normalized con-
currently as well.
68



âe (−) = 0


Prediction = (3.91)


P(−) = P + FP + PFT + Q ∆t


L 1 L L
G q̇ w,tk =− w̃q,tk ⊗ G q tk−1 (3.92)
2
L
G q w,tk =LG q tk−1 +LG q̇ w,tk ∆t (3.93)
L
L G q w,tk
G q w,tk = L
(3.94)
|G q w,tk |2
After that, the measurement step must be performed. Once more, the standard
KF and the error vector quaternion MEKF equations have been compared. Here z(k)
ˆ L q mag and ∆
is the raw measurement (ae obtained directly from ∆ ˆ L q mag ), H is the
G G
measurement output matrix (which is the identity matrix because measurements are
directly taken from sensor observations), K is the Kalman gain, R is the covariance
of the stationary, measurement noise V(t), âe (+) is the final estimate of the error
vector quaternion and P(+) is the final estimate of the covariance matrix.
69






 z(k) = h(x, k) + GV(t)






H = ∂h(x,k)


∂x







Standard EKF prediction step = K = P(−)HT HP(−)HT + R−1 (3.95)








x̂(+) = x̂(−) + K z(k) − Hx̂(−)











P(+) = I − KH P(−)







 ae = h(x, k) + V(t)






H = ∂h(x,k) =I


∂x




Error vector quaternion



= −1 (3.96)
K = P(−) P(−) + R
prediction step







âe (+) = Kae











P(+) = I − K P(−)

Apart from that, an adaptive Kalman Filter strategy has been designed to ac-
count for the estimation errors due to incorrectly assumed references. Basically the
goal is to take advantage of an approach similar to the one used with the com-
plementary filter. In this case, measurement noise model gets adapted instead of
adapting filter gains directly. When the sensors are not at steady state, accelerome-
ter measurements magnitude can actually be quite different from real gravity value
and assumption in Equation 3.59 then produces additional estimation errors. Hence,
70
an adaptive measurement noise covariance matrix R is defined in order to give more
or less trust level to the measurements. A vector k with tunable gains is used to
find the optimal R matrix from the static and initial measurement noise matrix R0 .

R = R0 1 + k eg (3.97)
Where eg is declared in Equation 3.80 as the gravity error magnitude and repre-
sents the difference between accelerometer measurements L g̃ and global true gravity
G
vector g with unit norm (||G g|| = 1g). Empirically, kacc and kmag vectors have
been set as a result of a fine tuning process. In essence, if em ≈ 0, the MEKF re-
lies mostly on measurements, whereas predictions become increasingly reliable and
certain as long as em > 0.

kacc = kmag = 104 104 104 (3.98)
Even though theoretically the approach might look straightforward, in practice
one of the most challenging parts of Kalman Filter modeling is to correctly charac-
terize process and sensor noise covariance matrices (Q and R, respectively). Thanks
to the sensor characterization procedure described in Section 2.2, the noise covari-
ance matrix can be already defined as uncorrelated and with variances σ 2acc , σ 2gyro
and σ 2mag (see Equation 2.7). Regarding covariance matrix Q, uncorrelated noise
has also been assumed but the variances have been tuned empirically. In the ex-
periments it has been observed that the MEFK does a great job if there is more
71
uncertainty in the measurements and more trust into the predictions. Therefore,
variances of process noise have been defined as two orders of magnitude lower than
the corresponding measurement noise variance. This increases the uncertainty of
measurements while making predictions more trustworthy.
 
2
σx,acc 0 0 
 
  R0,acc
R0,acc = 0 σ 2
0  Qacc = (3.99)

 y,acc 
 100
 
2
0 0 σz,acc
 
2
σx,mag 0 0 
 
  R0,mag
R0,mag = 0
 2
σy,mag 0  Qmag = (3.100)


 100
 
2
0 0 σz,mag
After the final corrected error quaternions ae,acc and ae,mag have been estimated
by means of the Multiplicative Extended Kalman Filter, Equation 3.87 is used to get
ˆ L q acc and ∆
the respective corrected error quaternions ∆ ˆ L q mag . To finish, gyroscope
G G
angle quaternion is corrected and converted to Euler angles (through Equation 3.83,
3.84, 3.85 and 3.85) in the same way as it is done with the complementary filter.
Below, Figure 3.16 illustrates the angle estimation results obtained through the
quaternion-based MEKF, using mentioned tunable values.
72
Improved roll, pitch and yaw angle estimation
Roll (◦ ) 200
100
−100
0 5 10 15 20
100
Pitch (◦ )
−100
0 5 10 15 20
100
Yaw (◦ )
50
−50
0 5 10 15 20
t (sec)
Figure 3.16: Roll, pitch and yaw angles estimation (colored lines) with quaternion-
based complementary filter compared to gyroscope angle estimation (dashed line).
3.1.3 Comparison
Backed up by a working implementation of the methods and theoretical conclusions,
orientation angle estimation through Euler angles, quaternion-based complementary
filter and quaternion-based Multiplicative Extended Kalman Filter has been com-
pared. The final decision will be then used to fuse signals merged by the gyroscope,
accelerometer and magnetometer. In order to help making the best decision, re-
sults of each approach using same raw data have been plotted together to see if any
significant differences exist. This can be found hereafter in Figure 3.17.
73
Angle estimation comparison of different methods
100
Roll (◦ )
50
−50
0 5 10 15 20
50
Pitch (◦ )
−50
0 5 10 15 20
100
Yaw (◦ )
50
−50
0 5 10 15 20
t (sec)
Figure 3.17: Comparison of the three analyzed orientation estimation approaches:

Euler angles (green), quaternion-based complementary filter (red) and quaternion-
based Multiplicative Extended Kalman Filter (blue).
First of all, a clear discrimination needs to be done between Euler angles estima-
tion and quaternion-based estimation. Even only looking at the results, it is evident
that the first contains more estimation errors, specially in the yaw angle. That is
because the computation of yaw is dependent on roll and pitch angles. Thus, most
of the big errors in yaw estimation can be primarily identified when roll and pitch
angle estimation errors happen.
Besides being less human understandable and having to make sure that unit
quaternions are preserved, quaternion estimation offers a more complete solution.
Orientation changes are described with a single rotation with the axis-angle repre-
sentation, unlike Euler angles method, which requires three elemental rotations and
74
therefore more computational resources. Moreover, ambiguities and singularities
such as Gimbal lock are avoided. Adaptive filtering strategies implemented with
quaternions also reduce errors.
Focusing on the complementary filter and MEKF with error quaternions, there
is a clear tradeoff between accuracy and cost. It seems that the MEKF can do
sligtly better than the complementary filter, although the difference is not really
obvious in this case. Robustness against noise is also a factor that is in favor of
the Kalman Filter, while the complementary filter is more responsive to aggressive
sensor movements. Finally, the MEKF requires more matrix-wise operations due
to the state space formulation, which asks additional memory and computational
resources allocation. Hereafter, Figure 3.18 represents the comparison between the
quaternion-based complementary filter and the quaternion-based MEKF.
Figure 3.18: Comparison of the quaternion-based complementary filter (red) and

quaternion-based Multiplicative Extended Kalman Filter (blue).
75
Considering the target application of this work, that is, a smart and portable
headset with IMU sensors capable of detecting human behavior movements, it has
been decided that a quaternion-based complementary filter is more suitable over the
quaternion-based MEKF. Basically, it is assumed that accuracy of the complemen-
tary filter method is enough for the proposed task. Additionally, this approach fits
better into any embedded system thanks to its simplicity and cheap implementation.
3.2 Position Estimation
Unfortunately, it has been observed that orientation angles themselves are not
enough to perform a successful detection and classification of stand up, sit down
and walking behaviors, even though certain patterns have been identified in the
pitch angles. Many people tend to move the head a little bit up and down when
sitting down or standing up. Using that information, several successful movements
have been classified correctly. Nonetheless, not every subject has that characteris-
tic and when head movements are noisy it is very easy to classify a false positive.
Thus, angles alone cannot be employed as a unique features as a the classification
strategy. For that reason, position has been also estimated, as an additional feature
to orientation. The most common approach to estimate position is to apply dou-
ble integration to linear acceleration [44], [45], extracted from accelerometer data.
Therefore, linear acceleration needs to be estimated in first place.
76
3.2.1 Linear Acceleration Estimation
Considering that measured acceleration in the local coordinate frame L ã is composed
by gravitational acceleration L a(g) , linear acceleration L a(l) and measurement noise
L
ϕ (recall Equation 2.1), it is possible to compute (noisy) linear acceleration after
subtracting the gravity component.
L L (g) L (l) L
ã = a + a + ϕ (3.101)
L L (g) L (l) L L (l)

ã − a = a + ϕ≈ a (3.102)
However, the IMU might be at a different orientation any given time, so there is
no way to know how the gravitational acceleration is distributed along the X, Y and
Z axes in the local coordinate frame. As a result, estimated orientation quaternion
must be used to rotate from the local reference system to the global reference system.
After that, 1g has to be subtracted from the global Z axis to finally obtain linear
acceleration. Figure 3.19 shows that there is no linear acceleration at stationary
conditions (a(l) = 0).
G L ∗ L G L ∗ L L

ã = R G q tk ã → ãq = G q tk ⊗ ãq ⊗ G q tk (3.103)
77
   
(l)
G a˜x   G a˜x 
   
G (l)
   
ã = G (l)  =  G
 a˜y   a˜x 
 (3.104)
   
   
G (l) G
a˜z a˜x − 1
Linear acceleration estimation along X, Y, Z axes

0.05
0
Linear acceleration (m/s2 )
−0.05
0 5 10 15 20
0.05
−0.05
0 5 10 15 20
0.1
−0.1
0 5 10 15 20
t (sec)
Figure 3.19: Linear accelerometer estimation at rest (stationary conditions).
Note that measurement noise is still present in the estimation. In consequence,
double integration is going to generate an exponentially increasing drift. In Section
3.1, many sensor fusion techniques were employed to remove drift in the orientation
angles resulting from gyroscope data single integration. Nevertheless, there are not
known similar fusion algorithms to eliminate velocity and position drift. That means
that a double integration stage on the raw linear accelerometer gives extremely
78
inaccurate velocity and position estimates. For example, position estimates may
very well accumulate a drift error of ±10 meters after 5 seconds [46]. In order to
avoid that, various techniques can be applied to increase estimation reliability.
First of all, linear acceleration signal might be low pass filtered to reduce some
high frequency noise. In this case, our solution implements a moving average filter,
where linear acceleration is downsampled from 100 Hz to 25 Hz, taking the average
of the last 4 samples every time step and obtaining a filtered linear acceleration
estimate G â(l) . What is more, when the absolute value of G â(l) is still smaller than
ten times the standard deviation σ acc , linear acceleration is automatically set to
zero. That fix helps to avoid estimating non-zero velocity when the IMU is at rest.
An illustration of the filtered linear acceleration can be found in Figure 3.20 when
a person is standing up.


|G â(l) | < σ acc

0,


G (l)
â = (3.105)


G â(l) , |G â(l) | ≥ σ acc


79
Filtered linear acceleration estimation along X, Y, Z axes
1
0
Linear acceleration (m/s2 )
−1
0 5 10 15 20
4
−2
0 5 10 15 20
5
−5
0 5 10 15 20
t (sec)
Figure 3.20: Comparison of filtered linear accelerometer estimation (colored lines)

and raw accelerometer estimation (dashed lines) when standing up (around t = 12s).
3.2.2 Velocity and Position Estimation
Next, filtered linear acceleration is integrated and linear velocity G v̂(l) is estimated.
As with the gyroscope integration (see Equation 2.5), this is carried out every time
1
step ∆t (where now ∆t = 25
seconds). Due to remaining noise in filtered linear
acceleration, velocity might not get to zero at rest after integration. Hence, whenever
filtered linear acceleration is zero for a period of 5 samples, the velocity is also set
to zero. Hereafter, Figure 3.21 represents the velocity estimation of the data shown
in Figure 3.20 when a person is standing up. Note that velocity is forced to zero
after integration.
80
G (l) G (l) G (l)
v̂ [t + ∆t] = v̂ [t] + â ∆t (3.106)
Linear velocity estimation along X, Y, Z axes

0.06
0.04
0.02
0
0 5 10 15 20
0.5
Velocity (m/s)
−0.5
0 5 10 15 20
0.5
−0.5
0 5 10 15 20
t (sec)
Figure 3.21: Velocity estimation when standing up (around t = 12s).
Finally, position G p̂(l) is computed by integrating estimated linear velocity. Po-
sition estimation from linear velocity obtained in Figure 3.21 has been included in
Figure 3.22. It is essential to remark that the value of this estimations contain dou-
ble integration drift and therefore cannot be employed as a real absolute value of
velocity and position. However, the relative information of such estimations can be
very useful when having to detect movement events such as sitting down, standing
up and walking. The detection algorithm of our work is thoroughly explained in
Section 4.
81
G
p̂(l) [t + ∆t] = G
p̂(l) [t] + G (l)
v̂ ∆t (3.107)
Position estimation along X, Y, Z axes

0.02
0.01
0
0 5 10 15 20
0.2
Position (m)
−0.2
0 5 10 15 20
0.1
−0.1
0 5 10 15 20
t (sec)
Figure 3.22: Position estimation when standing up (around t = 12s).
82
4. Pattern Recognition
Having derived precise orientation angles and approximate linear acceleration, ve-
locity and position, the relevance and contribution of each of these features to be-
havioral movements have been analyzed. Specifically, the final goal has been to
determine different events and identify the transition among the following states:
standing up, sitting down and walking.
For that purpose, the development of a robust detection algorithm has been in
the main focus. As classification only takes place among three different patterns,
pattern recognition does not become the hardest stage. The toughest part is to
identify standing up, sitting down and walking events and discarding random head
movements and noise. Our solution has been to look at the rate of change of the
estimated position along the Z axis to observe if any of the events happened, which
is actually equivalent to looking at the vertical estimated linear velocity. Regarding
the classification algorithm, traditional techniques and metrics such as template
matching with correlation and euclidean distance turned out to be very effective as
long as an accurate detection algorithm is implemented.
83
4.1 Event Detection Algorithm
In essence, the event detection algorithm consists in computing the accumulated ve-
locity over the last 2 seconds (called the detection signal) and doing a peak detection
on the signal using the short-term standard deviation σST as a threshold. For the
accumulated velocity, the last 50 linear velocity samples are summed up because it
has been observed that it takes about two seconds (which is equal to 50 samples at
25 Hz) to stand up or sit down. It is believed that this signal is representative of
the vertical head movements when a person is wearing a headset.
Apart from that, looking at the short-term standard deviation is a good way
to detect rounded peaks in a varying real-time signal. The distribution formed by
the last 10 samples (or 0.2 milliseconds) are utilized to calculate σST in this case.
That means that the threshold becomes adaptive and depends on last estimated few
samples. Then, it is said that an event has been detected if the detection signal is
greater than kσST , where k = 40 has been set after empirical analysis in our work.
Figure 4.1 below illustrates the detection signal while a person is standing up and
the red dot represents the detection of the event.
84
Detection signal
Detection signal 250
200
150
100
50
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
t (sec)
Figure 4.1: Detection signal (in blue) and k = 40 times the short-term standard
deviation kσST (dashed line) when standing up (around t = 14s). The event has
been correctly detected at the red dot.
Even though this method perfectly detects standing up and sitting down events
when the user is not moving the head randomly, the algorithm becomes prone to
false positives once neck rotations come into play. Therefore, a minimum threshold
thmin has been calculated empirically. Whenever the detection signal is greater than
thmin = 16, an event is detected as long as the kσST is satisfied as well. Noise and
person’s natural head movements are mostly discarded through this thresholding
strategy.
Besides, it has been noted that the detection signal increases linearly if the
person wearing the headset is walking. It is assumed that this phenomenon is due
to how velocity is approximated through integration, because the estimated velocity
turns out to be always non-zero and positive after each step. In consequence, a
maximum threshold thmax = 100 has been set by empirical analysis as well. Like
that, the walking event can be detected as the detection signal exceeds thmax after
2-3 seconds of continuous walking.
85
It is worth mentioning that only the events detected between thmin and thmax
will go through the classification algorithm and pattern recognition phase afterwards,
while all the events above thmax are due to walking events and below thmin no events
are detected. Thanks to this strategy, very few false positives are detected in total.
Experimental and numerical results are later covered in Section 5 and in fact, they
confirm the statements made in this section.
Hereafter, a sample case of all possible events has been included in Figure 4.2.
The sequence of events shown is defined by the person first standing up (around
t = 3.5 seconds), secondly walking (around t = 13.5 seconds), then sitting down
(around t = 18 seconds) and finally moving the head to simulate noisy cases (around
t = 13.5 seconds). It can be clearly seen how the first three events are perfectly de-
tected, whereas the random head movement is neglected by the detection algorithm.
Sometimes head movements are neglected because the detection signal is below thmin
and other times they are discarded because the signal does not exceed kσST . In
conclusion, it can be said that a proper and precise event detection algorithm has
been developed from which the classification algorithm can take advantage in the
next stage.
86
Detection signal
Detection signal 500
400
300
200
100
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
t (sec)
Figure 4.2: Detection signal (in blue), k = 40 times the short-term standard de-
viation kσST (dashed gray line), minimum threshold thmin = 16 (dashed red line)
and maximum threshold thmax = 100 (dashed green line) with standing up (around
t = 3.5s), walking (around t = 7.5s), sitting down (around t = 13.5s) and head
movement (around t = 18s) movement events. Events have been correctly detected
and head movement has been successfully neglected.
4.2 Classification Algorithm
The classification algorithm takes care of performing pattern recognition from de-
tected events in the detection algorithm. These events typically correspond to stand-
ing up or sitting down movements, although strong random head movements might
also get to this stage. Walking events are never classified by this algorithm, as the
event detection algorithm alone can automatically do that job. Thus, any event
introduced to the classification algorithm can only have three possible outcomes:
standing up, sitting down or noisy movement. Due to the fact that few patterns
need to be distinguished, simple and cheap traditional pattern recognition tech-
niques suffice for successful classification. In our solution, vertical linear velocity
(along Z axis) of detected events has been employed for pattern representation.
Basically a database with three templates is created (one for each event type) and
87
these are then aligned with the detected event or test event through cross-correlation
[47] in order to maximize the similarity among them. After that, euclidean distance
between the aligned test event and patterns is computed. The lowest distance de-
termines the matched template lastly and the outcome is provided [48].
It is necessary to mention that the templates have been recorded under controlled
environments and circumstances so that the inherent nature of the movements could
be captured. The more representative a template is, the higher the probability of
successful classification becomes. The templates of standing up, sitting down and
noisy movement can be found in Figure 4.3, Figure 4.4 and Figure 4.5, respectively.
Note that the duration of the templates lasts three seconds and that the level of
patterns has been scaled to the [-1, 1] range to account for the different vertical
linear velocity intensities in the movements. That means that shape of the vertical
linear velocity is mainly compared rather than the amplitude.
Standing up pattern
1.5
Scaled amplitude
0.5
−0.5
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
t (sec)
Figure 4.3: Template of the standing up pattern represented with the scaled vertical
linear velocity (along Z axis).
88
Sitting down pattern
1
Scaled amplitude
0.5
−0.5
−1
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
t (sec)
Figure 4.4: Template of the sitting down pattern represented with the scaled vertical
Noisy movement pattern

1.5
Scaled amplitude
0.5
−0.5
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
t (sec)
Figure 4.5: Template of the noisy movement pattern represented with the scaled
vertical linear velocity (along Z axis).
89
In the case of the pattern for the noisy movement, a random movement similar
to a walking pattern has been employed. This pattern has been selected because
it is sufficiently different from standing up and sitting down patterns and therefore
anything that does not match these two movements will always match with a noisy
movement.
Once an event recognized in the detection algorithm is to be fed to the classi-
fication algorithm, the test signal is directly defined as the three-second duration
scaled vertical linear velocity around the detection time instant. As an example,
Figure 4.6 shows the test signal defined from a sitting down event in the detection
algorithm.
Test signal from sitting down event

1
Scaled amplitude
0.5
−0.5
−1
−1.5
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
t (sec)
Figure 4.6: Test signal of a sitting down event represented with the scaled vertical
As a next step, a cross-correlation is carried out between each template and
the test signal. Thanks to this, both signals can be aligned so that the similarity
between them is maximized. Cross-correlation Rxy simply consists of computing the
correlation coefficient (defined in the range [-1, 1]) at m samples lag between two
signals, x and y, where m = 1, 2, ..., 2N − 1, N being the length of the signals.
90
Rxy (m) = E{xn+m yn∗ } = E{xn yn−m
∗
} (4.1)
−∞ < n < ∞, m = 1, 2, ..., 2N − 1


PN −m−1 x
 ∗
m≥0

 n=0 n+m yn ,
Rxy (m) = (4.2)


∗

Rxy
 (−m), m<0
Here ∗ indicates complex conjugation and E { } is the expected value operator. If
a cross-correlation between two identical signals is calculated, then this is denoted
as auto-correlation and the maximum value happens to be at m = 0 (Rxy (0) = 1).
Therefore, the optimal lag mopt that maximizes the similarity between x and x can
be derived from the cross-correlation, which always yields the highest correlation
value, i.e. Rxy (mopt ) = 1.
After the test signal is shifted mopt samples, the euclidean distance deucl. between
the now aligned test signal and template is calculated (see Equation 4.3 below for a
generalized expression of the euclidean distance). Finally, all the computed distance
metric are compared and the template with the smallest distance value is defined
to be matched template and hence the output of the classification algorithm. Other
distance calculation methods have been tried out such as Dynamic Time Warping
(DWT) [49], but it has been observed that they only increase the computational
cost and do not make a difference in the template matching. Hereafter, test signals
91
from the detected events in Figure 4.2 have been aligned with all the three templates
to compute the euclidean distance in Figure 4.7 and Figure 4.8. Both events are
classified correctly, as Figure 4.7 recognizes a standing up movement while Figure
4.8 is matched with a sitting down event.
p
deucl. (x, y) = (x1 − y1 )2 + (x2 − y2 )2 + ... + (xN − yN )2
v
u N
uX (4.3)
=t x n+m (xi − yi )2
i=1
Standing up pattern vs aligned test signal

1
d = 6e−01
0
−1
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
Sitting down pattern vs aligned test signal
Scaled amplitude
1
d = 7e+00
0
−1
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
Noisy movement pattern vs aligned test signal
1
d = 7e+00
0
−1
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
t (sec)
Figure 4.7: Pattern recognition of a standing up event through template matching

between aligned test signal and template patterns using euclidean distance (d in the
plots).
92
Standing up pattern vs aligned test signal
2
d = 2e+01
0
−2
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
Sitting down pattern vs aligned test signal
Scaled amplitude
2
d = 7e+00
0
−2
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
Noisy movement pattern vs aligned test signal
2
d = 3e+01
0
−2
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
t (sec)
Figure 4.8: Pattern recognition of a sitting down event through template matching
between aligned test signal and template patterns using euclidean distance (d in the
plots).
In summary, it can be underlined that a robust pattern recognition implemen-
tation has been achieved, thanks to the event detection algorithm and the classifi-
cation algorithm. Walking events are directly classified upon detection, most noisy
movements are properly treated throughout the process and the distinction between
standing up and sitting down is efficiently performed as well.
93
5. Tests and Results
Recordings of different subjects have been made to see if our work can correctly
track behavioral events regardless of the person wearing the headset and verify the
accuracy of the proposed solution. In total, tests with 16 people have been carried
out, where each subject was recorded three times, each with different activity events.
Of course, every subject was told to act naturally and under a relaxed behavior. All
the tests included walking, standing up, sitting down and noisy head movement
events. What is more, some of the subjects even moved the head quite aggressively
in some cases.
At the time of making the tests and obtain the results, different statistical pa-
rameters have been observed. This allows for a more exhaustive modeling of the
performance in this solution. For that, signal detection theory principles have been
studied and applied to evaluate the effectiveness of the event detection algorithm
[50]. Given that happening an event and not happening an event depends on various
factors, both cases follow a certain probability distribution (see Figure 5.1). As both
distributions can overlap due to conflictive edge cases, there are different outcomes
that a detection algorithm might output.
94
Figure 5.1: Illustration with probability distributions of an event happening and not
happening.
According to signal detection theory, there are four possible outcomes in any
detection scheme when the detection decision is based on a certain criterion or
threshold. First of all, if the algorithm detects an event that actually happened,
it is said that there was a hit or true positive detection. On the contrary, if the
event was not detected, there was a missed detection or false negative. Moreover,
when artifacts are intentionally not detected, a correct rejection or true negative
detection is carried out. In last place, a false alarm or false positive detection takes
place when the algorithm is not able to neglect the fake event. Figure 5.2 illustrates
all the four different possible outcomes from a probability distribution standpoint.
95
Figure 5.2: Illustration of hit (true positive), missed detection (false negative), cor-
rect rejection (true negative) and false alarm (false positive) in signal detection
theory.
In the case of the classification algorithm, two extreme cases may be distin-
guished: correct match and incorrect match. Recall that this only applies to de-
tected standing up, sitting down and noisy head movement events, whereas walking
event pattern classification corresponds to the detection algorithm. Hereafter, the
statistical results computed from the tests have been analyzed. Whereas Table 5.1
includes the distribution of the results in the event detection algorithm, the success
rate of the classification algorithm can be found in Table 5.2.
96
Outcome type Results distribution
Event Hits (true positives) 89 %
happening Missed detections (false negatives) 11 %
Event not Correct rejections (true negatives) 94 %
happening False alarms (false positives) 6%
Table 5.1: Test result distributions showing the event detection algorithm perfor-
mance.
Outcome type Results distribution

Event Correct match 92 %
happening Incorrect match 8%
Table 5.2: Test result distribution showing the classification algorithm performance.
As it can be observed, there are few cases in which the solution fails. Sometimes
the detection signal is not high enough during events and that is why few of them are
not detected. Reducing the threshold would only increase false alarms, so it becomes
a trade-off between true and false positives. Furthermore, it can be said that noisy
head movements and fake events are effectively discarded. Regarding the template
matching, a reasonable success rate has been obtained, i.e. 92 %. The remaining
8 % was not matched correctly primarily because the estimation of vertical linear
velocity was not accurate enough. In addition to Table 5.1 and Table 5.2 results,
walking event detection and classification success rate has been seen to be close to
99 %. Overall, a solution with robust detection and classification stages has been
achieved.
97
6. Conclusions and Future Lines
To finish, a summary of the most fundamental concepts, potential future lines and
principal conclusions of the work have been included in this section. Essentially, a
prototype of a headset with an IMU has been built and raw sensor data has been
thoroughly analyzed and processed.
Different orientation estimation algorithms have been compared and the quaternion-
based complementary filter has been selected because it computes accurate enough
estimations for the planned task at a considerably lower computational cost than
other approaches, such as Euler angles or Multiplicative Extended Kalman Filter
estimation. Furthermore, efficient sensor fusion techniques have been followed to
correct orientation drift. Even like that, it has been concluded that orientation
alone is not enough to detect and classify movements. With regards to linear ac-
celeration, velocity and position, approximated estimations have been obtained in
order to reinforce detection and classification stages. With that information, reliable
and efficient pattern recognition has been performed. Finally, satisfactory results
have been obtained with the proposed solution in the tests using different subjects.
Besides, there are still some aspects that could be improved. In first place, it
is believed that there is still room for improvement in the velocity and position
98
estimation algorithms. What is more, it is expected that calculating more exact
velocity estimates would really help to reduce the incorrect match statistics, as
movement patterns would become cleaner and more representative. On the other
hand, making the orientation estimation algorithm more accurate would not bring
relevant advantages as a precise enough method has already been achieved to rotate
measurements from local to global coordinate frame.
Moreover, it has been observed that many of the work in the literature has used
labeled data and trained supervised machine learning algorithms, e.g. Neural Net-
works, Deep Learning, etc. It would be interesting to see whether these approaches
have certain aspects that might be merged with the proposed solution.
A kinematic model of the human body could be also built so that artificial data
can be created. This would allow to further analyze detection and classification
algorithms. Combining real and artificial data, resulting statistics would be richer
as well.
In addition, some hardware changes could be made to the prototype and a more
appealing end device could be built. For instance, new sensors such as small cameras,
infrared sensors or GPS could highly contribute to a better estimation of the position
and would definitely help to strengthen the current implementation. In terms of
communication, an interesting future line would be to build a wireless prototype or
end device in the headset that can communicate via Bluetooth Low Energy.
Basically such little enhancements would probably allow to add more behavioral
events or activities to the solution. For example, movements such as walking up and
down stairs could be detected and classified. Running states could be analyzed as
99
well. Another attractive idea would be to track human posture while sitting down,
by means of orientation angles. All this would contribute to a better tracking of
human daily activities.
In conclusion, even though certain enhancements might be performed in order
to increase the performance and improve results, it can be said that an efficient and
robust solution has been developed and that the main initial objectives have been
successfully fulfilled.
100
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UC Santa Cruz

UC Santa Cruz Electronic Theses and Dissertations

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IMU DATA PROCESSING TO RECOGNIZE ACTIVITIES OF

A thesis submitted in partial satisfaction

The thesis of Alex Aranburu

Professor Yu Zhang, Chair

Professor Dejan Milutinovic, Advisor

Mr. Shridhar Mukund

5 Tests and Results 94

6 Conclusions and Future Lines 98

2.1 Example of a 9 DoF IMU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

2.2 Measured acceleration at rest (stationary conditions) in X (blue), Y

2.3 Measured angular velocity at rest (stationary conditions) in X (blue),

2.4 Vectorial representation of the geomagnetic field, in function of the

2.5 Measured magnetic flux at rest (stationary conditions) in X (blue),

2.6 Gaussian approximation of measured probability density function (his-

2.7 Gaussian approximation of measured probability density function (his-

2.8 Gaussian approximation of measured probability density function (his-

2.9 Locus of uncalibrated raw magnetometer measurements under a strong

2.10 Transformation from uncalibrated locus to calibrated locus with op-

3.2 Roll angle error surface |∆φ| for µ = 0.01. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

3.3 Roll angle error surface |∆φ| for µ = 0.1. [7pt] . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

3.4 Phase unwrapping example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

3.6 Roll and pitch estimation using gyroscope data. . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

3.8 Yaw estimation using magnetometer data and Euler angles. . . . . . . 40

3.9 Yaw estimation using gyroscope data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

3.10 Improved yaw estimation after fusing magnetometer and gyroscope

3.11 Visual representation of complex symbols properties. . . . . . . . . . 43

3.12 Simplified 2D comparison between Linear intERPolation (LERP) and

3.15 Block diagram of orientation estimation process through quaternions

3.17 Comparison of the three analyzed orientation estimation approaches:

3.18 Comparison of the quaternion-based complementary filter (red) and

3.20 Comparison of filtered linear accelerometer estimation (colored lines)

3.21 Velocity estimation when standing up (around t = 12s). . . . . . . . . 81

3.22 Position estimation when standing up (around t = 12s). . . . . . . . . 82

4.2 Detection signal (in blue), k = 40 times the short-term standard

4.7 Pattern recognition of a standing up event through template matching

4.8 Pattern recognition of a sitting down event through template match-

5.1 Illustration with probability distributions of an event happening and

5.2 Test result distribution showing the classification algorithm perfor-

roscope and magnetometer has been developed. Accurate estimation of orientation

sentative characterization of human behavior patterns in this case. Thanks to tests

industrial and academic domains. In addition, an increase in the quality, accuracy

conclusions of the work.

Activities of Daily Living is a term employed in healthcare and embraces people’s

may actually help clinicians to monitor rehabilitation and pharmaceutical treatment

processing perfectly suits human motion applications in virtual reality environments,

body that changes from application to application [5]–[7].

Moreover, a wide range of pattern recognition techniques have been employed

to perform activity or movement detection and classification, from Hidden Markov

Models (HMM), to Gaussian Mixture Models (GMM), k-Nearest Neighbour (k-NN),

Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) [11].

procedures or high computational resources and processing.

walking by means of a headset equipped with an IMU. To be more specific, a list of

secondary objectives has been written down.

and hardware considerably add to the energy consumption, computational effort

synchronization strategies in the algorithm.

ods. A headset perfectly satisfies this condition, as it is used by millions of people

Furthermore, it has been intended to provide a fully working headset prototype so

that an added-value product can be built by headset manufacturers and producers.

plest algorithms and traditional techniques instead of ultimate complex solutions.

completion of this thesis.

have been integrated into the given solution.