Area of research: Diploma & Master Thesis Job description: The position estimation of vulnerable road users like pedestrians, bikers or even cars is broadly investigated and different solutions exist in the literature. Positioning in urban canyons and underground environments like tunnels or station areas where GNSS reception is difficult will require a combination of sensors and other information such as maps of the environment in order to function accurately. We are pursuing sensor fusion approaches that combine GNSS, inertial sensors and different kinds of maps. A particularly powerful combination for pedestrian navigation is INS (Inertial Navigation System) step measurement in conjunction with GNSS, when GNSS is available. We have developed pedestrian navigation systems with a sensor placed either on the foot or inside the pocket, where the remaining drift can be corrected by different techniques like learning a map of the environment (SLAM), feature detection or GNSS, when available. With these techniques accurate tracks of pedestrians can be calculated in most cases, but the accuracy is still degraded e.g. indoors and in underground areas. In order to function more properly positioning based additionally on a magnetic field map shall be investigated indoors and in an underground station area. Due to build-in ferro-magnetic materials indoors and in underground areas the earth magnetic field is disturbed and a signature of the magnetic field intensity can be measured. The overall goal is to track pedestrians in all kind of environments with the aid of the magnetic field map in order to provide an accurate and reliable position estimate. Your task is to generate a magnetic map of an indoor and an underground station area with the aid of an existing SLAM algorithm and/or a magnetic field scanner in order to enhance positioning. The main goal is to investigate different positioning techniques based on inertial data and magnetic field maps. More specifically, your tasks are: Two specific indoor and underground areas are to be scanned with a magnetic field scanner and/or an existing SLAM approach. Several measurements shall be carried out in the scanned areas by a pedestrian wearing an inertial sensor and walking in the area more or less randomly. The magnetic field map shall be integrated as a prior map for the SLAM approach and the measurement results of the SLAM approach shall be analysed. An alternative new method for pedestrian tracking based on magnetic field maps shall be developed, implemented and investigated. Both methods shall be deeply tested and compared. The effect of using the magnetic field for pedestrian navigation shall be investigated in various experiments. This research center is part of the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centers. With more than 42,000 employees and an annual budget of over € 5 billion, the Helmholtz Association is Germany’s largest scientific organisation.
https://www.nature.com/naturecareers/job/60591-master-student-communication-engineering-electrical-engineering-or-similar-fmx-master-thesis-pedestrian-navigation-based-on-magnetic-fields-german-aerospace-center-dlr-747804
60591: Master student communication engineering, electrical engineering or similar (f/m/x)
