This paper describes a new sun sensor for absolute heading detection developed for the Field Integrated, Design and Operations (FIDO) rover. The FIDO rover is an advanced technology rover that is a terrestrial prototype of the rovers NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) plans to send to Mars in 2003. Our goal was to develop a sun sensor that fills the current cost/performance gap, uses the powe...

This paper describes a Kalman filter design to estimate orientation of human body segments by fusing gyroscope, accelerometer and magnetometer signals. Ferromagnetic materials near the sensor disturb the local magnetic field and therefore the orientation estimation. The magnetic disturbance can be detected by looking at the total magnetic density and a magnetic disturbance vector can be calcula...

Filtering algorithms are the workhorse of spacecraft attitude estimation but recent research has shown that the use of batch estimation techniques can result in higher accuracy per unit of computational cost. This paper presents an approach for singularity-free batch estimation of attitude in continuous-time using B-Spline curves on unit-length quaternions. It extends existing theory of unitlen...

Few technical details are available about the various sensors embedded in modern smartphones, and what details are available can be hard to assemble and interpret by the broader technical community that uses these devices. Since the physical and electromagnetic aspects of the sensors’ operation can significantly affect the analysis and use of their data, it is essential for those who rely on th...

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This paper approaches Context Knowledge Representation and Quality of Context (QoC) through the development of an ontology in this domain. It is thereby intended to improve knowledge sharing between humans and machines, and allow knowledge reuse between applications. A QoC assessment can contribute in order to enable context-aware applications to detect anomalies in sensors, generate alerts, di...

Starting from Maxwell’s equations, we derive a sensor model for three-axis magnetometers suitable for localization and tracking applications. The model depends on the relative position between the sensor and the target, orientation of the target and its magnetic signature. Both point targets and extended target models are provided. The models are validated on data taken from various road vehicl...