Gilbert, Thomas J;
Lin, Zexiao;
Day, Sally;
Hamilton, Antonia F de C;
Ward, Jamie A;
(2024)
A magnetometer-based method for in-situ syncing of wearable inertial measurement units.
Frontiers in Computer Science
, 6
, Article 1385392. 10.3389/fcomp.2024.1385392.
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Abstract
This paper presents a novel method to synchronize multiple wireless inertial measurement unit sensors (IMU) using their onboard magnetometers. The basic method uses an external electromagnetic pulse to create a known event measured by the magnetometer of multiple IMUs and in turn uses this to synchronize the devices. An initial evaluation using four commercial IMUs reveals a maximum error of 40 ms per hour as limited by a 25 Hz sample rate. Building on this we introduce a novel method to improve synchronization beyond the limitations imposed by the sample rate and evaluate this in a further study using 8 IMUs. We show that a sequence of electromagnetic pulses, in total lasting <3-s, can reduce the maximum synchronization error to 8 ms (for 25 Hz sample rate, and accounting for the transient response time of the magnetic field generator). An advantage of this method is that it can be applied to several devices, either simultaneously or individually, without the need to remove them from the context in which they are being used. This makes the approach particularly suited to synchronizing multi-person on-body sensors while they are being worn.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | A magnetometer-based method for in-situ syncing of wearable inertial measurement units |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.3389/fcomp.2024.1385392 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomp.2024.1385392 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © 2024 Gilbert, Lin, Day, Hamilton and Ward. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
| Keywords: | Wearabe sensors, Synchronization, IMU (Inertial measurement unit), Magnetic field sensor, multisensor |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Electronic and Electrical Eng |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10192029 |
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