JPH0821732A - Attitude, azimuth, and position measuring apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To obtain a small-sized, light-weighted portable apparatus by detecting the angluar velocities and the accelerations around the three orthoaxes of a three-dimensional space by gyros and accelerometers, operating and outputting the attitude angle, the azimuth angle and the position from both the signals. CONSTITUTION:A sensor section A has gyros 1-3 and accelerometers 4-6 corresponding to X-, Y- and Z-axes of a space. High-frequency noises are respectively removed from angular velocity signals and acceleration signals output from them by signal processors 7, A/D-converted, and input to an operation part B. The operation part B filter-operates both the signals by a microprocessor 8, corrects them, and converts them into gravities and angular velocities. A static oblique angle is obtained from the gravity, and a dynamic oblique angle is obtained from the velocity. Both are normalized to obtain an oblique angle, negatively fed back to the dynamic angle to obtain an accurate azimuth angle. The acceleration which is filter-operated is velocity coordinate-transformed to obtain the moving distance and the position. The apparatus uses piezoelectric type vibration gyros 1-3 to be reduced in the size and weight and easily to be portable.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a posture and azimuth position measuring device for measuring posture, azimuth and position, and more particularly to a posture and azimuth position measuring device attached to or carried by a human body to measure the posture, azimuth and position. It is about.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, the body is attached to or carried by a human body,
As the spatial position sensor of the measuring device that measures the azimuth and position, a magnetic sensor that uses the induced current generated by the magnetic field, and the time until the signal from the ultrasonic transmitter reaches the receiver is measured. Ultrasonic sensors that detect distances are common, but in the former case, if there is a magnetic substance such as metal in the measurement range, the magnetic field will be distorted and the accurate position cannot be measured, and there is concern that electromagnetic waves may affect the human body. In the latter case, the accuracy is inferior to that of the magnetic sensor.
In the dimensional space, one set of transmitter and receiver is required, which causes a problem of high cost. In addition, in any case, an AC magnetic field or an ultrasonic wave generation source is required, and there are limits to the range of the AC magnetic field and the ultrasonic wave reaching from the generation source. Since the detection device can not operate properly when the source is adjacent, it is necessary to secure a distance that is not affected by other sources, and it becomes complicated to route the cable connecting the source and the sensor to the signal control device. There was a problem such as.

[0003]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and is a posture and orientation position measuring device that is compact and lightweight, can be attached to or carried by a human, and the space for measurement is not limited. The purpose is to provide.

[0004]

In order to achieve the above object, an attitude and azimuth position measuring apparatus of the present invention comprises a gyro for detecting angular velocities around three axes which are orthogonal to each other in a three-dimensional space,
A sensor unit, which is arranged corresponding to the three axes and includes an accelerometer that detects acceleration, and a calculation unit that calculates an attitude angle, an azimuth angle, and a position from an angular velocity signal and an acceleration signal from the sensor unit. And an output unit for outputting the result.

The gyro may be a piezoelectric vibration gyro, and the accelerometer may be a monolithic acceleration sensor manufactured by a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus process.

[0006]

According to the above construction, the sensor section detects accelerations in the three-axis directions perpendicular to each other in the three-dimensional space by the monolithic acceleration sensor manufactured by the semiconductor manufacturing apparatus process, and the angular velocity around the three-axis direction is detected. Is detected by a piezoelectric vibration gyro, and the detected acceleration signal and angular velocity signal are input to the calculation unit. The calculation unit calculates the posture, azimuth angle and position from the acceleration signal and the angular velocity signal according to a predetermined program, and the output unit outputs the calculation result.

[0007]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows a posture and azimuth position measuring apparatus, where A is a sensor section, B is a calculation section, and C is an output section.

As shown in FIG. 2, the sensor unit A includes a first gyro 1, a second gyro 2, and a gyro 2 corresponding to three axes (roll (X) axis, pitch (Y) axis, azimuth (Z) axis). The third gyro 3 and the first accelerometer 4 and the second accelerometer 4 corresponding to the three axes.
The accelerometer 5 and the third accelerometer 6 and the signal processing unit 7 connected to the outputs thereof.

As the gyro, for example, a piezoelectric vibrating gyro (ENC-05D) manufactured by Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd. may be used. This gyro is an ultra-compact, ultra-light gyro with a simplified structure and circuit configuration, and is set to have high mass productivity and low cost. The accelerometer is, for example, a monolithic acceleration sensor (ADXL-5 made by Analog Devices, Inc.).
0) may be used. This acceleration sensor is an ultra-compact, ultra-lightweight accelerometer that implements an acceleration measurement system on a monolithic chip and has a sensor and a signal conditioning circuit.

The gyro is an optical fiber gyro,
The piezoelectric vibrating gyro is not limited as long as it can detect the angular velocity.

The signal processing unit 7 includes a bandpass filter for removing a DC component contained in the detection signals of the gyro and the accelerometer and a high frequency noise component, an amplifier for amplifying the detection signal, and a digital detection signal. It is composed of an A / D converter that converts the data into a digital signal.

The arithmetic unit B comprises a one-chip microprocessor 8, a ROM 9 which stores a processing program, and a RAM 10 which stores the arithmetic result, and the gyro converted into a digital signal by the signal processing unit 7. The angular velocity signal and the acceleration signal from the accelerometer are input in the programmed sequence and cycle, and the results of arithmetic processing according to a predetermined program are used as posture angle (pitch angle, roll angle) data, azimuth angle data, and position data. It is provided to output. As the microprocessor 8, for example, a Hitachi CPU (HD6477034F20) may be used.

The output unit C is composed of an RS232C driver, and transmits the output data of the arithmetic unit B as serial data from the connector 15 connected by the RS232C interface in response to a request from an external processing device (not shown). Is provided.

The DC power source may be supplied from an external power source (not shown) via the connector 15.

FIG. 3 is a perspective view showing the configuration of the posture and azimuth position measuring device. The posture and azimuth measuring device is fixed in a housing 11 so that a vertical substrate 12 and a horizontal substrate 13 are orthogonal to each other. The arithmetic board 14 is fixed by an appropriate method, and a connector 15 for connection with an external device and a power supply is arranged on the side surface.

The vertical substrate 12 and the horizontal substrate 13 are formed of a printed circuit board. The third gyro 3, the third accelerometer 6 and the signal processing unit 7 thereof are fixed to the vertical substrate 12, and the horizontal substrate 13 is fixed. The first gyro 1, the second gyro 2, the first accelerometer 4, the second accelerometer 5, and the respective signal processing units 7 are fixed to the operation gyro 1, and the operation unit B is connected to the operation unit B. The output section C is arranged.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing the software configuration of the posture / azimuth position measuring apparatus.

Since the posture / azimuth position measuring apparatus is configured as described above, the flow of processing will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

When power is supplied to the attitude and azimuth position measuring device from an external power source, the gyros 1, 2, 3 and the accelerometer 4,
Since 5 and 6 are intelligent type sensors, they output an angular velocity signal and an acceleration signal. The angular velocity signal and the acceleration signal are converted into digital signals after being filtered by the signal processing unit 7 to remove high frequency noise components and input to the arithmetic unit B. Therefore, the arithmetic unit B receives the acceleration signal and the angular velocity in a predetermined order and cycle. Capture the signal and (step 1). In step 2, the captured acceleration signal and angular velocity signal are subjected to filter calculation processing, bias correction and scale correction are performed, the output voltage of the acceleration sensor is converted into gravity, and the output voltage of the gyro is converted into angular velocity.

Depending on whether the data input in step 3 is acceleration data or angular velocity data, if the data is acceleration data, in step 4, the angle with respect to the gravitational field is calculated from the gravity detected by the accelerometers 4, 5, and 6, and the accelerometer is calculated. The tilt angle obtained by is calculated as a static tilt angle.

In step 5, the angular velocities detected by the gyros 1, 2 and 3 are integrated over time to obtain the gyro 1,
The tilt angle obtained by 2 and 3 is calculated as the dynamic tilt angle.

If the tilt angle is the azimuth angle, the pitch angle or the roll angle in step 6, and if the pitch angle is the roll angle,
In step 7, normalization processing is performed by the static inclination angle and the dynamic inclination angle. This normalization process increases the reliability of the gyro when the movement is heavy, and increases the reliability of the accelerometer when the movement is calm, and complements the gyro and the accelerometer with each other to provide an accurate posture. The parameter for calculating the angle is determined. The ratio of the static element and the dynamic element is frequency-divided by the angular velocity of the gyro, and it is judged from the dynamic frequency. Let θ1 be the tilt angle and θ2 be the tilt angle detected by the gyro, and in equation 1, θ = K1θ1 + K2θ2 .... (1) K1 + K2 = 1 The parameter K2) and the static ratio (parameter K1) are determined.

Based on the above ratio, the tilt angle θ is obtained in step 8 based on the parameter obtained by the normalizing process in step 7 from the static tilt angle obtained in step 4 and the dynamic tilt angle obtained in step 5. To calculate. This tilt angle means a roll angle and a pitch angle, and the above calculation is performed for each of the roll angle and the pitch angle.

In step 9, the dynamic tilt angle calculated from the angular velocity detected by the third gyro 3 is set to step 8
The tilt angle calculated in step 1 is fed back and corrected to calculate the actual accurate azimuth angle.

The acceleration data filtered in step 2 is subjected to velocity coordinate conversion in step 10 to calculate the moving distance (step 11), and the position is calculated from the moving distance (step 12).

The posture angle (pitch angle, roll angle), azimuth angle, and position data calculated as described above are stored in the RAM 10, and the output unit C is responsive to a request from an external device.
Is output as RS232C serial data.

As described above, since the sensor unit A is composed of the piezoelectric vibration gyro and the monolithic accelerometer,
The entire device can be made small and lightweight, and can be easily attached to or carried by the human body. Also, gyro 1, 2,
Since the position and angle are measured by the 3 and the accelerometers 4, 5, and 6, by setting the origin in advance, it is possible to measure the relative position and angle from that position, and from a signal source such as an AC magnetic field or an ultrasonic wave. Since there is no restriction on the installation position and conditions of the sensor because it is not the relative position or angle of the sensor, the usable space is not restricted, and the range of use such as rehabilitation in amusement or medical treatment can be expanded.

Further, in car navigation, by linking with GPS (Global Positioning System) using satellites, it is possible to correct the position in high-rise buildings, tunnels, and mountainous areas where satellite radio waves do not reach. Furthermore, by mapping with a map, navigation without using GPS can be realized, so that extra equipment such as an antenna is not required.

[0030]

According to the present invention of claim 1, since the position and the angle are measured by combining the gyro sensor and the accelerometer, the function of the sensor can be complemented, and the accurate posture angle and azimuth angle can be measured. You can Further, it does not require a signal generation source of ultrasonic waves or an alternating magnetic field, and the position and range of the measuring device used are not limited, and the device can be used in an infinite space.

According to the second aspect, since the sensor portion is constituted by the monolithic acceleration sensor and the piezoelectric vibrating gyro, it can be made compact and lightweight, and can be mounted on or carried by a human body. It can be used not only for mobiles and stables, but also for amusement and medical applications in unlimited fields.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a posture and azimuth position measuring device.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an arrangement state of a gyro and an accelerometer.

FIG. 3 is a perspective view showing a configuration of a posture and azimuth position measuring device.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing a software configuration of a posture / azimuth position measuring device.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating a process of a posture and azimuth position measuring device.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 1st gyro 2 2nd gyro 3 3rd gyro 4 1st accelerometer 5 2nd accelerometer 6 3rd accelerometer A sensor part B computing part C output part

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A gyro for detecting angular velocities around three axes that are orthogonal to each other in a three-dimensional space, and a sensor section including an accelerometer arranged corresponding to the three axes to detect acceleration.
A posture and azimuth position measuring device comprising: a calculation unit that calculates a posture angle, an azimuth angle, and a position from an angular velocity signal and an acceleration signal from the sensor unit, and an output unit that outputs a calculation result. 2. The attitude / azimuth position measuring device according to claim 1, wherein the gyro is a piezoelectric vibration gyro, and the accelerometer is a monolithic acceleration sensor manufactured by a semiconductor manufacturing device process.