IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INSTRUMENTATION AND MEASUREMENT, VOL. 61, NO.
10, OCTOBER 2012
Quaternion-Based Kalman Filter With Vector
Selection for Accurate Orientation Tracking
Zhi-Qiang Zhang, Xiao-Li Meng, and Jian-Kang Wu
Abstract—Human body orientation estimation from
microinertial/magnetic sensor units is highly important for
synthetic environments, robotics, and other human–computer
interaction applications. In practice, the main challenge is
how to deal with linear acceleration interference and magnetic
disturbance which always cause significant attitude-estimation
errors. In this paper, we present a novel quaternion-based
Kalman filter with vector selection scheme for accurate human
body orientation estimation using an inertial/magnetic sensor
unit. In the proposed algorithm, the gyroscope measurement is
used as an input to construct the linear process equation, and the
accelerometer and magnetometer measurements are manipulated
to establish the linear pseudomeasurement equation. A linear
Kalman filter is then deployed to estimate the body orientation.
In the Kalman filter framework, a vector selection scheme is
designed to protect the algorithm against undesirable conditions
such as temporary intensive movement and magnetic disturbance
and enable it to acquire more accurate orientation estimation. The
experimental results have shown that the proposed algorithm can
provide accurate attitude estimations with regard to the ground
truth.
Index Terms—Inertial sensing, Kalman filter, orientation track-
ing, quaternion, vector selection.
I. I NTRODUCTION
A CCURATE ESTIMATION of human body segment ori-
entation plays significant roles for various applications
such as virtual reality, rehabilitation robotics, sports science,
and human–computer interaction [1]. Traditional orientation-
determination methods are mainly based on multiple structured
high-resolution cameras to capture IR-reflective marks in a
dedicated studio, such as Vicon [2] and BTS [3]. Although they
offer good overall system accuracy, they are very expensive
and are not affordable to the general public [4]. However, the
applications would be tremendously benefited if the orientation
can be measured in an unconstrained environment by a sensing
system that does not require any external sources [5].
The rapid development of microinertial and magnetic sen-
sors has enabled the research into accurate body segment
Manuscript received January 12, 2012; revised February 23, 2012; accepted
February 24, 2012. Date of publication June 8, 2012; date of current version
September 14, 2012. The Associate Editor coordinating the review process for
this paper was Dr. Salvatore Baglio.
Z.-Q. Zhang is with the Department of Computing, Imperial College
London, SW7 2AZ London, U.K. (e-mail: z.zhang@imperial.ac.uk).
X.-L. Meng and J.-K. Wu are with Sensor Networks and Applications Re-
search Center, Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing
100049, China (e-mail: mengxiaoli07@mails.gucas.ac.cn; jkwu@gucas.ac.cn).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TIM.2012.2196397
0018-9456/$31.00 © 2012 IEEE
2817
orientation tracking, which not only provides the sourceless
property but also offers the low-cost solution for long-period
orientation monitoring in daily life environment. A typical
inertial/magnetic sensor module contains a three-axis gyro-
scope, accelerometer, and magnetometer. The gyroscope senses
the angular rate which can be numerically integrated to ob-
tain the orientation, but the integration is subject to bound-
less orientation drift error. Usually, the accelerometer and the
magnetometer mainly measure the gravity and local magnetic
field with respect to the global coordinate system resolved
in the sensor local coordinate system, so the accelerometer
and magnetometer measurements can provide two constant
reference vectors (the gravity for the vertical reference and the
local magnetic field for the horizontal reference) to compensate
the gyroscope integration error [6]. However, the accelerometer
and magnetometer measurements may also be disturbed by
linear acceleration interference and magnetic disturbance, so
a proper scheme to fuse all three types of measurements is
required.
Extensive research has been performed on how to fuse
inertial and magnetic sensor measurements for accurate ori-
entation estimation. For example, Foxlin [7] proposed a com-
plementary separate-bias Kalman filter, which was designed
for head-tracking applications. Zhu and Zhou [8] determined
joint angles in axis/angle form using data from three-axis
accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer mounted on the
inboard and outboard sides of the joint. Yan and Yuan [9]
described an orientation-tracking algorithm that used low-cost
sensor modules to take two-axis measurements of gravity and
the local magnetic field. Yun et al. [10] proposed an extended
Kalman filter to estimate the orientation of human limb using
a combination of inertial sensors and magnetic sensors. We
also had the similar work on fusing the inertial and magnetic
sensor measurements for upper limb movement estimation [11],
[12]. However, the aforementioned methods are only suitable
for smooth moving rigid body movement and are not applicable
to situations where relatively large linear acceleration exists due
to dynamic motion. Furthermore, the aforementioned methods
also require stability of the surrounding magnetic environment;
therefore, they are problematic for many of the real-world appli-
cations when the linear acceleration and magnetic disturbance
are not ignorable. To make the orientation-estimation method
more robust and more resilient to the temporary linear acceler-
ation interference and magnetic disturbance, a number of ad hoc
solutions have been proposed. For instance, Veltink and Luinge
[13] proposed a model to separate the gravitational acceleration
and the linear acceleration and then derived the inclination from
3-D accelerometers, but it could only deal with situations when
2818 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INSTRUMENTATION AND MEASUREMENT, VOL. 61, NO. 10, OCTOBER 2012

the linear acceleration was very small. Young [14] tried to corresponds to the axes of three orthogonally mounted inertial
estimate the linear accelerations of inertial sensors attached to sensors and magnetometer. To facilitate our analysis, in what
rigid bodies in order to improve the accuracy of sensor measure- follows, the body coordinate system is assumed to coincide
ments. The method was based on the assumption that the length with the sensor coordinate system.
between sensor and rotation center was known. Sabatini [15] For description convenience, we use the following notations:
developed a quaternion-based extended Kalman filter, where T
YGt = (YGt,x , YGt,y , YGt,z ) , gyroscope measurement vector
the perturbed situations are handled by switching observation
at time t;
variances. Similarly, Sun et al. [16] proposed to calculate the
YAt accelerometer measurement vector at time t;
confidence of accelerometer and magnetometer measurements, t
YM magnetometer measurement vector at time t;
but the method needed to compute the Jacobian matrix (partial
g vector of the gravitational field resolved in global
derivatives) of measurement functions with respect to the orien-
coordinate system;
tation, which involved very heavy computational loads. Kang
m vector of the magnetic field resolved in global coordi-
and Park [17] introduced an attitude-estimation method using
nate system.
an extended Kalman filter with a fuzzy-logic-based tuning
algorithm. Four fuzzy rules were designed to change the char-
acteristics of the filter to ensure confidence of the outputs of the
A. Quaternion Rotation Operator and Representation
gyros, but the method could only be used for 2-DOF orientation
estimation. In summary, although some efforts have been made From the Euler’s rotation theorem, we know that any rotation
to overcome the temporary linear acceleration interference and can be expressed as a single rotation about a certain axis for a
magnetic disturbance, significant problems still remain. specific angle. Let
In this paper, we propose a quaternion-based Kalman filter ⎡ ⎤
for accurate estimation of human body segment orientation. Our u1
main goal is to design a computationally efficient orientation u = ⎣ u2 ⎦ (1)
algorithm which is resilient to the temporary linear acceleration u3
interference and magnetic disturbance.
1) To make the Kalman filter more computationally efficient be the unit vector (unique except for sign) which represents
and to avoid linearization and computing the Jacobian the rotation axis remaining unchanged during the rotation, and
matrix (partial derivatives) of measurement equation, the let β be the magnitude of rotation angle with its sign being
gyroscope measurement is used as an input to construct determined by the rotation axis. The Euler parameters can be
the linear process equation, and the accelerometer and defined by a scale and a vector as
magnetometer measurements are manipulated to build  
the linear pseudomeasurement equation. A linear Kalman β
q0 = cos (2)
filter is then invoked to estimate the body orientation. 2
⎡ ⎤ ⎡ ⎤
2) To deal with the temporary linear acceleration interfer- q1     u1
ence and magnetic disturbance and provide more reliable ⎣ q2 ⎦ = u sin β β ⎣ u2 ⎦
= sin (3)
quaternion estimation, a vector selection scheme is de- 2 2
q3 u3
signed. The scheme can well protect the algorithm against
undesirable conditions such as temporary intensive move-
which obey the following constraint:
ment and magnetic disturbance and enable it to compute
more accurate orientation estimation.
q12 + q22 + q32 + q02 = 1. (4)
Detailed experiments are conducted to validate the proposed
method, and the good performance of the experimental results
has shown the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed These four parameters are also referred to as a unit quaternion
orientation estimation and analysis algorithm. [18], which is commonly written in the form
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. In Section II,
the proposed quaternion-based Kalman filter is described, q = (q1 , q2 , q3 , q0 ). (5)
including the quaternion representation, quaternion process
model, linear pseudomeasurement equations, and vector selec- In this paper, unit quaternion is selected to represent the
tion scheme. Performance evaluation is detailed in Section III. rotation and orientation of the body segment because it does not
Finally, conclusion is given in Section IV. suffer from the singularity problem, which is associated with
Euler angles/rotation matrix [19]. Moreover, the quaternion is
a relatively computationally efficient parameterization since,
II. P ROPOSED A PPROACH
as opposed to Euler angles, it does not involve trigonometric
In a typical application, a strap-down inertial and magnetic functions to compute the rotation matrix and has only one
measurement unit is attached to the rigid body, represented redundant parameter, as opposed to the six redundant elements
by a body frame B, whose orientation is to be determined of the rotation matrix [20].
with respect to a global coordinate system G. Meanwhile, the Let us consider a pair of 3 × 1 vectors b = [b1 , b2 , b3 ]T
sensor unit also has its own sensor coordinate frame S, which and r = [r1 , r2 , r3 ]T resolving in the body frame B and in
ZHANG et al.: QUATERNION-BASED KALMAN FILTER WITH VECTOR SELECTION FOR ACCURATE TRACKING 2819

the reference frame G, respectively, which are related by the where I4×4 is the identity matrix of dimension 4 × 4. The
quaternion rotation q as matrix R(YGt ) has the following properties:
   
2  2
b r R YGt = − YGt  · I4×4
= q −1 ⊗ ⊗q (6)
0 0
3  2

R YGt = − YGt  · R YGt
where ⊗ represents quaternion multiplication and q −1 is the
4   4
R YGt = YGt  · I4×4
inverse quaternion of q as

5   4

R YGt = YGt  · R YGt
q −1 = (−q1 , −q2 , −q3 , q0 ). (7)  6

6
R YGt = − YGt  · I4×4 (14)
Premultiplying (6) by q, we can get
    and so on. By substituting these properties into (13), we can get
b r  t   t 
q⊗ = ⊗q (8) |YG | Δt 1 |YG | Δt

0 0 Θt = cos ·I4×4 + t sin ·R YGt .
2 |YG | 2
where (15)
 
b
q⊗ = R(b)q C. Vector Selection and Pseudolinear Measurement Model
0
⎡ ⎤ In (12), we use the gyroscope measurements directly as the
0 −b3 b2 b1
⎢ b 0 −b1 b2 ⎥ input to the process model, which is subject to unbounded
R(b) = ⎣ 3 ⎦ (9) integration drift error. To compensate the drift, accelerometer
−b2 b1 0 p3
−b1 −b2 −b3 b0 and magnetometer measurements should be fused with the
  gyroscope measurements together. However, the accuracy for
r the drift compensation is determined by the reliability of the
⊗ q = L(r)q
0 accelerometer and magnetometer measurements YAt and YM t
,
⎡ ⎤ which can be disturbed by linear acceleration interference and
0 r3 −r2 r1
⎢ −r 0 r1 r2 ⎥ magnetic disturbance. Therefore, we need to detect whether the
L(r) = ⎣ 3 ⎦. (10) sensor measurements YAt and YM t
are perturbed and replace
r2 −r1 0 r3
−r1 −r2 −r3 0 the degraded measurements with more reliable ones. Since
gyroscope measurements are only dominated by the angular
Denoting H(b, r) = R(b) − L(r), we can get the following velocity regardless of the kinematic conditions and the mag-
property for b and r: netic environment, they can be considered as more reliable
information than the degraded measurements of accelerometer
H(b, r)q = 0. (11) and magnetometer. It should be noted that the unbounded
orientation error involved in the integration step in (12) mainly
comes from the accumulation of the gyro measurement error,
B. Process Model but such error in a short period is much smaller than the errors
The process model describes the dynamic relationship be- caused by severely degraded YAt and YM t
.
tween the states of any two successive time steps. Here, the Based on the reason mentioned earlier, the new measurement
purpose is to estimate the quaternion to represent the rigid body vectors stA and stM are obtained through the numerical integra-
segment orientation, so we can define the state vector for the tion of the gyro measurement as given in (12). The predicted
t
Kalman filter as qt directly. The relationship between qt and quaternion q̂t−1 is based on the gyroscope measurements YGt
qt−1 can be written as [21] and quaternion estimation q̂t−1 at t − 1 as
t
q̂t−1 = Θt q̂t−1 . (16)
qt = Θt qt−1 + et (12)
Hence, the new vectors stA and stM can be replaced by the
where Δt is the sampling rate (we set to 0.01 s in our imple- following equations/conditions:
mentation) and et is the process noise which is assumed to ⎧  
⎪ t−1,t  t 
be zero-mean additional Gaussian white noise with covariance ⎪
⎨ Y A , if g − Y A   >  A1
matrix Q. Θt = exp{(1/2)R(YGt )Δt}. We can rewrite matrix   
stA =   t−1,t  t  (17)
exponential Θt using its Taylor series expansion as ⎪ or   Y  − Y 
A  >  A2
⎪
⎩ t
A

 2 YA , otherwise
1
 1 1
t ⎧  
Θt = I4×4 + R YGt Δt + R YG Δt ⎪ t−1,t  t 
2 2! 2 ⎪ YM , if m − YM
⎨   >  M1
  
 3 stM =   t−1,t  t  (18)
1 1
t ⎪ or  Y  − Y 
M  >  M2
+ R YG Δt + · · · (13) ⎪
⎩ t
M
3! 2 YM , otherwise
2820 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INSTRUMENTATION AND MEASUREMENT, VOL. 61, NO. 10, OCTOBER 2012

TABLE I
F OUR C ASES OF V ECTOR S ELECTION . C ASE I: S LOW M OTION W ITH
N O M AGNETIC D ISTURBANCE ; C ASE II: S LOW M OTION BUT
W ITH M AGNETIC D ISTURBANCE ; C ASE III: FAST M OTION
W ITH N O M AGNETIC D ISTURBANCE ; C ASE IV: FAST
M OTION BUT W ITH M AGNETIC D ISTURBANCE

where YAt−1,t and YM t−1,t

are the predicted measurements of ac-
−1
celerometer and magnetometer, i.e., YAt−1,t = (q̂t−1 t
) ⊗g⊗
t−1,t −1
t
q̂t−1 and YM t
= (q̂t−1 ) ⊗ m ⊗ q̂t−1 t
, and Ai and Mi (i =
1, 2) are the criterion thresholds. Table I summarizes the four
cases of the measurement vector selection.
After the vector selection scheme, we can acquire two pairs
of vectors stA and g and stM and m resolving in the body frame
B and in the reference frame G, respectively, so the pseudolinear
measurement equations can be written as

Φt qt = 0 (19)

where
 
H (stA , g)
Φt = . (20)
H (stM , m)

As the pseudosensor measurements stA and stM are always with

small noise, (19) should be revised as

Φt qt + vt = 0 (21)

where vt is assumed to be the zero-mean Gaussian noise with

Fig. 1. Experimental setup. (a) Inertial/magnetic sensor module. (b) BTS
covariance R. optical motion tracking system.

D. Linear Kalman Filter III. E XPERIMENTAL R ESULTS

Kalman filter incorporates the evolution of the underlying A. Experimental Setup

system state qt along with the observations of the system. Since In order to evaluate the performance of the proposed method,
the process model (12) and measure model (21) are linear, a detailed experiments were conducted using an inertial/magnetic
linear Kalman filter is adopted in this study. The Kalman filter sensor module. In these experiments, the sensor module was
prediction step evolves the system until it reaches the next placed on a rigid body as shown in Fig. 1, and then, the rigid
observation, yielding a predicted (before observation) estimate body was rotated arbitrarily. Meanwhile, reflective marks were
t t
of the system state q̂t−1 and its covariance Pt−1 also put on the rigid body. Seven high-resolution BTS cameras
t were laid around the rigid body, while another camera was fixed
q̂t−1 = Θt q̂t−1 (22) at the roof. BTS cameras captured all the movements of the
t
Pt−1 = Θt Pt−1 (Θt )T + Q. (23) three markers in 2-D image space separately (the error is less
than 0.2 mm on a volume of 3 m × 2 m × 2 m), and then,
The Kalman observation step uses the observations stA and stM
t BTS SMART application used all the 2-D data sequences to
to improve on the predicted estimates of the state q̂t−1 and its
t reconstruct the rigid body movement in three dimensions as the
covariance Pt−1
ground truth.
t

−1
Kt = Pt−1 (Φt )T Φt Pt−1t
(Φt )T + R (24)
t
q̂t = q̂t−1 − Kt Φt q̂t−1
t
(25) B. Experimental Results and Discussion
Pt = Pt−1t
− Kt Φt Pt−1
t
. (26)
To study the performance of the proposed algorithm under
The quaternion estimation q̂t should then be normalized to different conditions, four different experiments were done to
represent an orientation test the four scenarios: 1) slow motion with no magnetic
disturbance; 2) slow motion but with magnetic disturbance;
q̂t 3) fast motion with no magnetic disturbance; and 4) fast motion
q̂t = . (27)
q̂t  but with magnetic disturbance, respectively. For each of these
ZHANG et al.: QUATERNION-BASED KALMAN FILTER WITH VECTOR SELECTION FOR ACCURATE TRACKING
Fig. 2. Orientation-estimation result: Slow motion with no magnetic
disturbance.
Fig. 3. Magnitude of the magnetometer output: Slow motion but with mag-
netic disturbance.
experiments, the orientation was estimated using two modes:
1) the proposed quaternion-based Kalman filter without vector
selection scheme and 2) the proposed quaternion-based Kalman
filter with vector selection scheme.
1) Slow Motion With No Magnetic Disturbance: In our first
experiment, we tested the slow motion scenario with no mag-
netic disturbance. During the experiment, we moved the sensor
node very gently and kept it away from the ferromagnetic ma-
terials, so the accelerometer rarely experienced any additional
linear acceleration, and also, there was no significant magnetic
disturbance. Since there was no acceleration interference and
no magnetic disturbance, the vector selection scheme was not
activated during the orientation estimation, so the estimated
orientations are exactly the same using the two modes. The
estimation result is given in Fig. 2. It is obvious that the
estimation quaternion is almost the same with the results of
BTS system and the estimation differences between them are
extremely small.
2821
Fig. 4. Orientation-estimation result: Slow motion but with magnetic
disturbance.
TABLE II
E STIMATED ATTITUDE C OMPARISON B ETWEEN P ROPOSED
M ETHOD W ITH /W ITHOUT V ECTOR S ELECTION AND
T HAT OF BTS O PTICAL S YSTEM
2) Slow Motion But With Magnetic Disturbance: In the
second test, we moved the sensor node very gently around
iron materials intermittently, which perturbed the magnetome-
ter outputs significantly as shown in Fig. 3. The purpose of
this experiment was to illustrate the effects of the magnetic
disturbance to the orientation estimation and the subsequent
performance of the proposed Kalman filter with the vector
selector scheme.
Fig. 4 shows the orientation-estimation comparison with
the BTS optical motion tracker. Without the vector selection
scheme, the magnetic disturbance causes the quaternion to devi-
ate from the true orientation severely. With the vector selection
scheme, the Kalman filter can automatically switch between
Case I and Case II (mentioned in Table I), which reduces the
effects of the magnetic disturbance to the orientation estimation
and resulted in accurate orientation estimation.
We also changed all the quaternions in Fig. 4 into Euler
angles to analyze the performance of our proposed orientation-
estimation method. The quantitative comparison results be-
tween the BTS system and sensor system are shown in Table II.
In the table, we considered the root mean square (RMS),
mean error, and error standard deviation between BTS system
and sensor system. Correlation coefficient is also considered.
From the results derived, it is evident how the vector selection
scheme significantly reduces the RMS error, mean error, and
error standard deviation. There is also an excellent correlation
coefficient between the vector selection result and that of the
BTS system.
2822 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INSTRUMENTATION AND MEASUREMENT, VOL. 61, NO. 10, OCTOBER 2012

TABLE III
E STIMATED ATTITUDE C OMPARISON B ETWEEN P ROPOSED
M ETHOD W ITH /W ITHOUT V ECTOR S ELECTION AND
T HAT OF BTS O PTICAL S YSTEM

Fig. 5. Magnitude of the accelerometer output: Fast motion with no magnetic

disturbance.

Fig. 7. Magnitude of the accelerometer output: Fast motion but with magnetic
disturbance.

Fig. 6. Orientation-estimation result: Fast motion with no magnetic

disturbance.

3) Fast Motion With No Magnetic Disturbance: In our third

experiment, the sensor node was rotated very intensively in
a magnetically homogeneous environment to perturb the the
accelerometer outputs seriously from the normal gravity accel-
eration as shown in Fig. 5.
Fig. 6 and Table III show how orientation estimation can be
improved with the vector selection scheme. Without the vector
selection scheme, the orientation-estimation result is highly
perturbed when the acceleration interference exists. After the
activation of the vector selector scheme, much more accurate
orientation estimation can be achieved. Significant reduction in Fig. 8. Magnitude of the magnetometer output: Fast motion but with magnetic
RMS error, mean error, and error standard deviation and huge disturbance.
improvement in correlation coefficient illustrate the advantage
of the vector selection scheme over the traditional nonvector respectively. The purpose of this experiment was to illustrate
selection method. whether the proposed method can deal with the acceleration
4) Fast Motion But With Magnetic Disturbance: In the last interference and the magnetic disturbance simultaneously.
experiment, we considered the scenario that the acceleration Similarly, Fig. 9 and Table IV show the orientation-
interference and the magnetic disturbance exist simultaneously, estimation comparison with the BTS optical motion tracker.
so we move the sensor node very fast and intensively. During Without the vector selection scheme, the acceleration interfer-
the process, the sensor node was moved close to an iron ence and magnetic disturbance cause the quaternion to deviate
disk several times. Both the accelerometer and magnetometer from the true orientation severely. With the vector selection
outputs were seriously perturbed as shown in Figs. 7 and 8, scheme, the Kalman filter can automatically switch among
ZHANG et al.: QUATERNION-BASED KALMAN FILTER WITH VECTOR SELECTION FOR ACCURATE TRACKING
Fig. 9. Orientation-estimation result: Fast motion but with magnetic
disturbance.
TABLE IV
E STIMATED ATTITUDE C OMPARISON B ETWEEN P ROPOSED
M ETHOD W ITH /W ITHOUT V ECTOR S ELECTION AND
T HAT OF BTS O PTICAL S YSTEM
Cases I–IV, which reduce the effects of the acceleration inter-
ference and the magnetic disturbance to the orientation estima-
tion and result in more accurate orientation estimation. Again,
small RMS error and excellent correlation coefficient show the
significant performance improvement using the vector selection
scheme over the traditional nonvector selection method.
The Kalman filter jumps to Case IV when both the accel-
eration interference and the magnetic disturbance exist, which
means that the orientation is acquired via the gyroscope in-
tegration directly. Due to the inherent gyroscope integration
drift, the Kalman filter should jump out of Case IV before the
drift is accumulated severely. In our experiment, each magnetic
disturbance only lasted very shortly for less than 1 s when
the acceleration interference exists, so the Kalman filter can
switch back to Case I or Case III in time to avoid significant
orientation-estimation error.
We also noticed that the major drawback of the proposed
method was that it could out deal with long-time interference,
either due to fast movement or due to ferromagnetic materials.
This is mainly because the inherent gyroscope drift cannot be
compensated when accelerometer or magnetometer measure-
ment is disturbed for long. In our future work, we will try to
integrate more sensors, such as cameras, in to provide addi-
tional information to further compensate the gyroscope drift.
In summary, the aforementioned analysis has shown that
the proposed vector selection method can deal with temporary
linear acceleration interference and magnetic disturbance. Even
when these two interferences exist simultaneously, the vector
selection method can still get accurate orientation estimation.
2823
IV. C ONCLUSION
In this paper, we have presented a novel 3-DOF orientation-
estimation algorithm. In the proposed algorithm, the gyroscope
measurement was used as an input to construct the linear
process model, and the accelerometer and magnetometer mea-
surement equations were manipulated to establish the linear
pseudomeasurement equation. Based on the linear process
model and the linear measurement model, a linear Kalman filter
was adopted to fuse all the sensor measurements. Furthermore,
to deal with the temporary linear acceleration interference and
magnetic disturbance and provide more reliable quaternion
estimation, a vector selection scheme was designed based on
the Kalman-filter-predicted measurement. Experimental results
have shown that the proposed method could well deal with
undesirable conditions such as temporary intensive movement
and magnetic disturbance and acquire more accurate orientation
estimation.
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Zhi-Qiang Zhang received the B.E. degree in com-
puter science and technology from the School of
Electronic Information Engineering, Tianjin Univer-
sity, Tianjin, China, in 2005 and the Ph.D. degree
from Sensor Networks and Applications Research
Center, Graduate University of Chinese Academy of
Sciences, Beijing, China, in 2010.
He is currently a Research Associate with the De-
partment of Computing, Imperial College London,
London, U.K. His research interests include body
sensor network, information fusion, and target track-
ing with about 20 publications in these areas in top journals and conferences.
Xiao-Li Meng received the B.E. degree in communi-
cation engineering from Tianjin University, Tianjin,
China, in 2007. She is currently working toward
the Ph.D. degree from the Sensor Networks and
Applications Research Center, Graduate University
of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
Her research interests include human motion
tracking, microsensor gait analysis, and information
fusion.
Jian-Kang Wu received the B.Sc. degree from the
University of Science and Technology of China
(USTC), Hefei, China, in 1970 and the Ph.D. degree
from Tokyo University, Tokyo, Japan, in 1992.
Prior to his current position, he was the Principal
Scientist and Department Manager with the New
Initiatives Department, Institute for Infocomm Re-
search (I2 R), Singapore, Singapore, (known as Kent
Ridge Digital Labs (KRDL), from 1998 to 2001,
and Institute of System Science (ISS) before 1998).
He created new research initiatives in the areas of
neuroinformatics, physioinformatics, and embedded sensor network systems
in I2 R and led a series of large international collaborative projects in KRDL
and ISS. He was a Full Professor with the USTC until 1993. He has also
been with the universities in the U.S., U.K., Germany, France, and Japan. He
is currently a Professor with the Graduate University of Chinese Academy
of Sciences, Beijing, China, where he is directing the Sensor Networks and
Applications Research Center, which is jointly operated by the Graduate
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Automation,
Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is an author of 18 patents, more than 100
papers, and five books.
Dr. Wu was a recipient of nine distinguished awards from the nation and the
Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing. He pioneered several research studies
in the area of visual information processing, including adaptive image coding
in the late 1970s, object-oriented Geographic Information System in the early
1980s, face-recognition technology in 1992, content-based multimedia index-
ing and retrieval in the 1990s, and rights management for multimedia contents
in the late 1990s. He initiated and led three large international collaborative
laboratories. He was regarded as “an exceptionally bright visionary” by U.S.
Giga Information Group.