Moving object tracker using sensor fusion of ultrasonic range finder and accelerometer

• Main Authors: Kenshi Saho, Yusuke Takahashi, Masao Masugi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2017-01-01
• Series: Journal of International Council on Electrical Engineering
• Subjects: Moving object tracker; α–β–γ filter; sensor fusion; ultrasonic range finder; accelerometer
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/22348972.2016.1277447

We present an accurate real-time moving object tracker using an α–β–γ filter for a position/acceleration sensor fusion system comprising ultrasonic range finders and an accelerometer. For this sensor fusion system, an optimal and stable α–β–γ filter receiving simultaneous measurements of position/acceleration is introduced based on a minimum-variance filter criterion. Numerical analyses and simulations verify its effectiveness in terms of stability, accuracy, convergence speed, and simplicity in parameter design. Experiments demonstrate its efficacy as a realistic tracking system and verify that the proposed α–β–γ filter achieves faster convergence and better accuracy than conventional position-only-measured α–β–γ filters with a steady-state error of 70% that of a conventional α–β–γ filter.