An Electronic Travel Aid based on multi-sensor fusion using extended Kalman filter

Inspired by the indoor localization technology of mobile robots, a novel Electronic Travel Aids (ETA) is developed based on multi-sensor fusion using an extended Kalman filter (EKF). A wearable sensor system is designed to estimate the real-time posture of user´s lower limb. This system can be used both for monitoring the user´s walking status and for realizing the relative localization. A belt of multiple sonar sensors worn by the user can detect the obstacle of unknown environment. Simultaneously, this sonar belt can also be used as the absolute localization device in a similar way as the mobile robot. An EKF is applied to realize the data fusion of different sensor systems. The abilities of obstacle avoidance and indoor localization of the proposed ETA are both verified through experiments.