A methodology for the compensation of compass heading estimation for the effect of magnetic influences

Dead Reckoning is the process of estimating the current position of a system or a person by using the previous known position and some knowledge about the speed, the direction of travel and the elapsed time. Such techniques are really valuable especially to perform indoor navigation tasks where Global Positioning Systems cannot operate. In order to perform an accurate localization, the DR methodology relies on a reliable awareness of both speed and direction. The DR system proposed through this paper has been implemented by a stand-alone and low cost architecture suitable for indoor application. The system consists of an integrated module providing signals from an accelerometer, a gyroscope and a magnetometer and a standard smartphone for signal processing. The main novelty introduced by the proposed approach consists in the methodology suggested to identify the Kalman Filter model. The results obtained encourage the use of the proposed approach.