G-constellations: G-sensor motion tracking systems

In most inertial motion tracking systems, motion directions are detected and measured by direction sensors such as magnetometers and gyroscopes. In this paper, we propose a motion tracking system, called g-sensor constellations, in which only g-sensors but no direction sensors are used. The g-sensor constellation is a loose coupling g-sensor system with rigid geometric topology. As few as three g-sensors are needed for motion tracking, including direction detection. The system is easy to be installed. No complicated calibrations are needed and the necessary information is the distances between sensors. The proposed framework can improve the accuracy of dead reckoning systems and help in the analyzing of traffic accidents and developing new human-computer interfaces. In our experiments, a g-sensor constellation composed of three g-sensors, which are located at the vertices of an equilateral triangle with edges of 0.3m and communicate with the processing unit via Bluetooth link.