Pedestrian sensor accuracy with minimal dependence on magnetometer

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11809639-B2
Application number	US-202117489190-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 29, 2021
Priority date	Sep 29, 2021
Publication date	Nov 7, 2023
Grant date	Nov 7, 2023

Abstract

Aspects presented herein may enable an electronic device to determine gyroscope biases and calibrate a gyroscope without a magnetometer or without relying on data generated from a magnetometer. In one aspect, an apparatus estimates a set of gyroscopic biases for a plurality of temperatures or temperature ranges to create a mapping that maps the plurality of temperatures or temperature ranges to the set of gyroscopic biases. The apparatus monitors temperatures of a gyroscope via a gyroscope temperature sensor. The apparatus calibrates the gyroscope in response to the gyroscope changing from a first temperature to a second temperature based on the mapping or based on a predicted value derived from the mapping. In some aspects, the apparatus calculates a DR trajectory of the apparatus based at least in part on the calibrated gyroscope and the accelerometer without using a magnetometer or without using data generated from the magnetometer.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An apparatus, comprising:
a gyroscope for determining a rotational position of the apparatus;
a gyroscope temperature sensor for measuring temperatures of the gyroscope;
memory; and
at least one processor, communicatively coupled at least to the memory, and configured to:
estimate a set of gyroscopic biases for a plurality of temperatures or temperature ranges to create a mapping that maps the plurality of temperatures or the temperature ranges to the set of gyroscopic biases;
monitor the temperatures of the gyroscope via the gyroscope temperature sensor;

calibrate the gyroscope in response to the gyroscope changing from a first temperature to a second temperature based on the mapping or based on a predicted value derived from the mapping;
identify a gyroscope-based orientation based on the calibrated gyroscope without using a magnetometer-based orientation identified by a magnetometer; and
calculate a dead reckoning (DR) trajectory of the apparatus based on the gyroscope-based orientation of the apparatus, wherein the magnetometer-based orientation is not used for calculating the DR trajectory if the gyroscope is calibrated and the magnetometer-based orientation is used for calculating the DR trajectory if the gyroscope is not calibrated.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the gyroscope is calibrated when the apparatus is not stationary based at least in part on one or more of: an accelerometer, a camera, or a sensor having a capability to determine an angular displacement.

3. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the gyroscope is calibrated when the apparatus is stationary and the gyroscope is not calibrated when the apparatus is not stationary.

4. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein to calibrate the gyroscope, the at least one processor is further configured to:
refrain from receiving an input from the magnetometer to calibrate the gyroscope.

5. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the at least one processor is further configured to:
calibrate the gyroscope based at least in part on the magnetometer if the gyroscope is not calibrated based on the mapping at the second temperature; and
refrain from calibrating the gyroscope based at least in part on the magnetometer if the gyroscope is calibrated based on the mapping at the second temperature.

6. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the at least one processor is further configured to:
calibrate the gyroscope based at least in part on the magnetometer in response to a measured magnetic field disturbance that is less than a disturbance threshold; and
refrain from calibrating the gyroscope based on the magnetometer if the measured magnetic field disturbance is greater than the disturbance threshold.

7. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the at least one processor is further configured to:
calibrate the gyroscope further based on the gyroscope being at an uncalibrated temperature or a difference between the first temperature and the second temperature being greater than a temperature threshold.

8. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the gyroscope is calibrated based on a background calibration.

9. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the at least one processor is further configured to:
calibrate the gyroscope further based on a gyroscopic bias value for the second temperature in the mapping being different from a stored compensation factor for the second temperature by a compensation threshold; and
update the stored compensation factor for the second temperature based on the gyroscopic bias value for the second temperature in the mapping.

10. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the mapping maps each of the plurality of temperatures or the temperature ranges to a gyroscopic bias value in the set of gyroscopic biases.

11. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the mapping does not include a gyroscopic bias value corresponding to the second temperature, the at least one processor being further configured to:
derive the predicted value based on a curve fit predicated based on multiple gyroscopic bias values in the mapping, based on an adjacent temperature of the second temperature available in the mapping, or based on a linear relationship between two temperatures or the temperature ranges in the mapping; and
calibrate the gyroscope in response to the gyroscope changing from the first temperature to the second temperature based on the predicted value.

12. The apparatus of claim 1 , further comprising an accelerometer coupled to the gyroscope, wherein to calculate the DR trajectory of the apparatus based on the gyroscope-based orientation of the apparatus, the at least one processor is further configured to:
calculate the DR trajectory of the apparatus based at least in part on the calibrated gyroscope and the accelerometer.

13. The apparatus of claim 12 , wherein the DR trajectory is calculated without using the magnetometer or without using data generated from the magnetometer.

14. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the apparatus includes one or more of: a pedestrian user equipment (UE), an augmented reality (AR) device, a virtual reality (VR) device, a device associated with an automotive application, a device or a component that is part of an automobile, a wireless device, or an Internet of Things (IoT) device.

15. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein to estimate the set of gyroscopic biases for the plurality of temperatures or the temperature ranges to create the mapping, the at least one processor is further configured to:
sample the temperatures of the gyroscope at multiple intervals;
estimate a gyroscopic bias for a sampled temperature at each of the multiple intervals based on the gyroscopic bias for the sampled temperature not existing in the mapping and the apparatus being stationary;
apply the gyroscopic bias for the sampled temperature to the mapping; and
refrain from estimating the gyroscopic bias for the sampled temperature if another gyroscopic bias of the sampled temperature exists in the mapping or if multiple gyroscopic bias estimations at the sampled temperature indicate a discrepancy.

16. The apparatus of claim 15 , wherein to estimate the gyroscopic bias for the sampled temperature, the at least one processor is further configured to:
stream sensor data for a fixed duration.

17. The apparatus of claim 1 , further comprising a transceiver communicatively coupled to the at least one processor.

18. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein to estimate the set of gyroscopic biases for the plurality of temperatures or the temperature ranges to create the mapping that maps the plurality of temperatures or the temperature ranges to the set of gyroscopic biases, the at least one processor is configured to:
estimate a gyroscopic bias for each of the plurality of temperatures or the temperature ranges;
record the estimated gyroscopic bias to the mapping based on the estimated gyroscopic bias not exceeding a bias noise threshold; and
exclude the estimated gyroscopic bias from the mapping based on the estimated gyroscopic bias exceeding the bias noise threshold.

19. A method, comprising:
estimating a set of gyroscopic biases for a plurality of temperatures or temperature ranges to create a mapping that maps the plurality of temperatures or the temperature ranges to the set of gyroscopic biases;
monitoring temperatures of a gyroscope via a gyroscope temperature sensor;
calibrating the gyroscope in response to the gyroscope changing from a first temperature to a second temperature based on the mapping or based on a predicted value derived fr

Assignees

• Qualcomm Inc

Inventors

• Morrison William
• Liang Hsiao Chien
• Nirula Gautam
• Shah Himanshu

Classifications

• G06F3/0346 Primary

  with detection of the device orientation or free movement in a three-dimensional [3D] space, e.g. 3D mice, 6-DOF [six degrees of freedom] pointers using gyroscopes, accelerometers or tilt-sensors · CPC title

• G01C25/005

  initial alignment, calibration or starting-up of inertial devices · CPC title

• G06F3/038

  Control and interface arrangements therefor, e.g. drivers or device-embedded control circuitry · CPC title

• G01C21/165 Primary

  combined with non-inertial navigation instruments · CPC title