An investigation of the effects of magnetic variations on inertial/magnetic orientation sensors

Rigid body orientation can be estimated in a "sourceless manner" through the use of small three degree of freedom sensor modules containing orthogonally mounted triads of micromachined angular rate sensors, accelerometers, and magnetometers. With proper filter design, drift errors can be eliminated. However, variations in the direction of the local magnetic field reference vector can cause errors in the estimated orientation. The experimental work described in this paper attempts to quantify these errors with an eye toward the development of corrective algorithms. To determine the types and magnitudes of errors that can be expected, three different types of inertial/magnetic sensor modules were subjected to controlled changes in the direction and magnitude of the local magnetic field. The amount of magnetic variation caused by several common objects was also measured in order to gain insight into the magnitude of errors that can be expected during operation in a typical environment. The experiments indicate that variations in the direction of the local magnetic field lead to errors only in azimuth estimation when using inertial/magnetic sensor modules. In a common room environment, errors due to local variations caused by objects such as electrical heaters, CRT monitors, and metal furniture can be expected to be no more than 16 degrees. In most cases these errors can be avoided by maintaining a separation of approximately two feet from the source of interference.

I. Introduction

Accurate real-time tracking of the orientation or attitude of rigid bodies has wide applications in robotics [Dissanayake et al. 2001], helicopters [Saipalli, et al. 2003], tele-operation, augmented reality, and virtual reality [Bachmann et al. 2001]. For body tracking applications, the human body can be - viewed as an articulated rigid-body consisting of approximately fifteen segments or links. If the orientation relative to a fixed, reference frame can be determined for each of the links then the overall posture of the human subject can be accurately measured. Limb segment orientation can be estimated through the attachment of an inertial/magnetic sensor module to each segment. This method of orientation estimation is desirable since it is not dependent on any artificially generated reference signal or any line of sight requirements [Meyer et al. 1992]. Since no generated signals are involved, there is no range of operation restriction. All latency in such a system is due to the computational demands of the data filtering algorithms and not to the physical characteristics of the generated source.