Adaptive Pedestrian Stride Estimation for Localization: From Multi-Gait Perspective

Accurate and reliable stride length estimation modules play a significant role in Pedestrian Dead Reckoning (PDR) systems, but the accuracy of stride length calculation suffers from individual differences. This paper presents a stride length prediction strategy for PDR systems that can be adapted across individuals and broad walking velocity fields. It consists of a multi-gait division algorithm, which can divide a full stride into push-off, swing, heel-strike, and stance based on multi-axis IMU data. Additionally, based on the acquired gait phases, the correlation between multiple features of distinct gait phases and the stride length is analyzed, and multi regression models are merged to output the stride length value. In experimental tests, the gait segmentation algorithm provided gait phases division with the F-score of 0.811, 0.748, 0.805, and 0.819 for stance, push-off, swing, heel-strike, respectively, and IoU of 0.482, 0.69, 0.509 for push-off, swing, heel-strike, respectively. The root means square error (RMSE) of our proposed stride length estimation was 151.933, and the relative error for total distance in varying walking speed tests was less than 2%. The experimental results validated that our proposed gait phase segmentation algorithm can accurately recognize gait phases for individuals with wide walking speed ranges. With no need for parameter modification, the stride length method based on the fusion of multiple predictions from different gait phases can provide better accuracy than the estimations based on the full stride.