Stride-in-the-Loop Relative Positioning Between Users and Dummy Acoustic Speakers

• Published in: IEEE journal on selected areas in communications Vol. 35; no. 5; pp. 1104 - 1117
• Main Authors: Huang, Wenchao, Li, Xiang-Yang, Xiong, Yan, Yang, Panlong, Hu, Yiqing, Mao, Xufei, Miao, Fuyou, Zhao, Baohua, Zhao, Jumin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.05.2017; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Acoustic noise; Acoustic signaling; Acoustics; Audio equipment; direction finding; Distance measurement; Estimation; Legged locomotion; Phase locked loops; ranging; Robustness; Signal processing; Smart devices
• ISSN: 0733-8716; 1558-0008
• DOI: 10.1109/JSAC.2017.2679600

We propose and implement a novel positioning system, WalkieLokie, which directly calculates the relative position from a smart device to a target. The requirement of the target is simple: it is attached with a "dummy" acoustic speaker, which does not have any other rich capabilities, such as audio recording, communication, or computation. Hence, the proliferation of smart devices, together with the cheap accessory (e.g., dummy speaker) embedded in daily used items (e.g., smart clothes), paves the way for WalkieLokie applications. WalkieLokie leverages the walking motion for locating an acoustic speaker. The key insight is that the distance between the user and the speaker varies in real time when the user walks, and the pattern of the variance implies the relative position. We design a novel algorithm to estimate the position and signal processing methods to support accurate positioning. The experiment results show that the mean errors of ranging and direction estimation are 0.63 m and 2.46°, respectively. Extensive experiments conducted in noisy environments validate the robustness of WalkieLokie.