Map Aided Pedestrian Dead Reckoning Using Buildings Information for Indoor Navigation Applications

Navigation systems play an important role in many vital disciplines. Determining the location of a user relative to its physical environment is an important part of many indoor-based navigation services such as user navigation, enhanced 911 (E911), law enforcement, location-based and marketing services. Indoor navigation applications require a reliable, trustful and continuous navigation solution that overcomes the challenge of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signal unavailability. To compensate for this issue, other navigation systems such as Inertial Navigation System (INS) are introduced, however, over time there is a significant amount of drift especially in common with low-cost commercial sensors. In this paper, a map aided navigation solution is developed. This research develops an aiding system that utilizes geospatial data to assist the navigation solution by providing virtual boundaries for the navigation trajectories and limits its possibilities only when it is logical to locate the user on a map. The algorithm develops a Pedestrian Dead Reckoning (PDR) based on smart-phone accelerometer and magnetometer sensors to provide the navigation solution. Geospatial model for two indoor environments with a developed map matching algorithm was used to match and project navigation position estimates on the geospatial map. The developed algorithms were field tested in indoor environments and yielded accurate matching results as well as a significant enhancement to positional accuracy. The achieved results demonstrate that the contribution of the developed map aided system enhances the reliability, usability, and accuracy of navigation trajectories in indoor environments.