A navigation system for aiding a human navigating, the navigation system includes a belt having a belt length and opposite belt ends, and includes an elongated compartment; a belt coupling arranged to the belt for coupling the belt ends; a compass sensor arranged to the belt and for sensing the compass direction based on the earth's magnetic field; a tactile unit arranged for tactile communicating a direction to the human; additional tactile actuators arranged to the belt and for communicating a direction to the human. The additional tactile actuators are distributed over the length of the belt. An elongated mesh is provided for arranging the elongated mesh inside the elongated compartment, the additional tactile actuators being arranged to the mesh. A processing unit is configured for controlling the navigation system.

A method for determining the position and orientation of a vehicle, this method including measuring, with a magnetometer, a raw-measurement vector; obtaining a reference vector encoding, in a terrestrial reference frame, the amplitude and the direction of the geomagnetic field, the components of the reference vector being obtained from a pre-recorded model of the geomagnetic field and not measured by the magnetometer; then only if the margin of error in an estimate of the orientation of the vehicle is below a predetermined threshold, updating the pre-recorded data from which scale and offset coefficients used for correcting the raw measurement from the magnetometer are obtained, this update being performed using the raw vector, the reference vector and the new estimate of the orientation of the vehicle.

A method for calibrating a magnetometer. The magnetometer travels through (Si) a set of path positions, and acquires (S2) a plurality of measurements of the magnetic field. Trajectory information (S3) is provided representative of the location and the orientation of a point integral with the magnetometer. The measurements of the magnetic field are matched up (S4) with the trajectory information. A determination (S5) is made of calibration parameters of the magnetometer by the minimisation of a cost function involving, for a plurality of determination times, at least the calibration parameters, a measurement of the magnetic field, and a relationship linking the change in a magnetic field with the change in the location and in the orientation of the magnetometer derived from the trajectory information.

A method for calibrating a magnetometer. The magnetometer travels through (Si) a set of path positions, and acquires (S2) a plurality of measurements of the magnetic field. Trajectory information (S3) is provided representative of the location and the orientation of a point integral with the magnetometer. The measurements of the magnetic field are matched up (S4) with the trajectory information. A determination (S5) is made of calibration parameters of the magnetometer by the minimisation of a cost function involving, for a plurality of determination times, at least the calibration parameters, a measurement of the magnetic field, and a relationship linking the change in a magnetic field with the change in the location and in the orientation of the magnetometer derived from the trajectory information.

Disclosed are a system for drone calibration related to calibration that is required prior to flying a drone, and a method therefor. According to the present invention, there is an effect of improving the convenience of a calibration operation required for flying a drone, and in addition, when multiple drones have to be flying at the same time, there is an effect of allowing the drown to be easily calibrated without manually calibrating each of the multiple drones.

An unmanned aerial vehicle includes one or more magnetometers, configured to detect a magnetic field and to output magnetometer data corresponding to a magnitude of the detected magnetic field; a position sensor, configured to detect a position of the unmanned aerial vehicle relative to one or more reference points, and to output position sensor data representing the detected position; one or more processors, configured to control the unmanned aerial vehicle to rotate about its z-axis; receive magnetometer data comprising a plurality of z-axis directional measurements taken during the rotation about the z-axis; receive position sensor data and determine from at least the position sensor data a magnetic field inclination of the detected position; and determine a z-axis magnetometer correction value as a difference between the received magnetometer data for the z-axis and the determined magnetic field inclination.

An unmanned aerial vehicle includes one or more magnetometers, configured to detect a magnetic field and to output magnetometer data corresponding to a magnitude of the detected magnetic field; a position sensor, configured to detect a position of the unmanned aerial vehicle relative to one or more reference points, and to output position sensor data representing the detected position; one or more processors, configured to control the unmanned aerial vehicle to rotate about its z-axis; receive magnetometer data comprising a plurality of z-axis directional measurements taken during the rotation about the z-axis; receive position sensor data and determine from at least the position sensor data a magnetic field inclination of the detected position; and determine a z-axis magnetometer correction value as a difference between the received magnetometer data for the z-axis and the determined magnetic field inclination.

A vehicle navigation system includes an external source sensor onboard a vehicle system that determines headings of the vehicle system. The external source sensor determines the headings using signals received from an off-board, external system. The navigation system also includes a magnetic sensor onboard the vehicle system that measures magnetic fields along different axes at different times. One or more processors determine a combination of the magnetic fields, determine a position translation and/or a magnitude scaling of the combination of the magnetic fields, and modify at least one of the headings based on the position translation and/or the magnitude scaling.

A vehicle navigation system includes an external source sensor onboard a vehicle system that determines headings of the vehicle system. The external source sensor determines the headings using signals received from an off-board, external system. The navigation system also includes a magnetic sensor onboard the vehicle system that measures magnetic fields along different axes at different times. One or more processors determine a combination of the magnetic fields, determine a position translation and/or a magnitude scaling of the combination of the magnetic fields, and modify at least one of the headings based on the position translation and/or the magnitude scaling.

An offset data acquisition method and device of a fluxgate magnetometer are provided by the present disclosure, wherein the offset data acquisition method of the fluxgate magnetometer comprises: controlling the first analog switch, the second analog switch and the third analog switch to change directions within a preset period to obtain eight switch direction combinations between the first analog switch, the second analog switch and the third analog switch; acquiring magnetic field measurement data corresponding to an each of the switch direction combinations; and the magnetic field measurement data comprises x-axis magnetic field measurement data, y-axis magnetic field measurement data and z-axis magnetic field measurement data; and acquiring the offset data based on influence factors of an offset and the magnetic field measurement data within the preset period.