Title: Room measurement tool combining ultrasonic and inertial sensors in smartphones

Authors: Yukitoshi Kashimoto; Yutaka Arakawa; Keiichi Yasumoto

Addresses: Graduate School of Information Science, Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Takayama-cho 8916-5, Ikoma-shi, Nara, Japan ' Graduate School of Information Science, Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Takayama-cho 8916-5, Ikoma-shi, Nara, Japan ' Graduate School of Information Science, Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Takayama-cho 8916-5, Ikoma-shi, Nara, Japan

Abstract: Obtaining accurate floor plans of buildings is critical for optimising indoor geographic information system (GIS) applications. In this paper, we present a room measurement tool that utilises a smartphone equipped with an ultrasonic sensor. To take measurements, users complete a lap along the walls of all of the rooms. Then the tool accurately estimates the shape and size of them by tracking the walking paths of users and measuring the distance from the path to the walls with ultrasonic sensors. To track walking paths, we utilise inertial sensors embedded in the smartphone to estimate walking steps and turns, and the ultrasonic sensors to estimate the stride length when walking toward the wall. To account for such adjacent objects as bookshelves that decrease the accuracy of room size estimation, we used a mixed Gaussian filter. Our experimental results show that our tool considerably improved the estimation accuracy of the room shape and size.

Keywords: room measurement tool; pedestrian dead reckoning; inertial sensor; smartphone; ultrasonic sensor.

DOI: 10.1504/IJAHUC.2019.100779

International Journal of Ad Hoc and Ubiquitous Computing, 2019 Vol.31 No.3, pp.189 - 199

Published online: 17 Jul 2019 *

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