Patent Description:
The use of today's widespread technologies for outdoor navigation may be problematic for indoor positioning and navigation mainly because of two reasons: GNSS (global navigation satellite system) signals are not available indoors and ferrous materials in the building construction heavily distort the geomagnetic field used for outdoor compass-based navigation. Further, in various applications, the orientation, i.e. heading and inclination (attitude), with respect to a reference coordinate system is of interest.

Work of the presently named inventor(s), to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description which may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly or impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.

<CIT> discloses a solution comprising detecting that a positioning device is within a predetermined control area associated with a building, acquiring a first sequence of magnetic field measurements carried out by the positioning device, wherein the first sequence represents at least one of the magnitude and the direction of Earth's magnetic field; determining that an operational environment of the positioning de-vice has changed between an indoor environment and an outdoor environment when a at least one predetermined criterion with respect to the first sequence is met; and causing actuation of a predetermined software function in or with respect to the positioning device when the operational environment of the positioning device has changed.

Further prior art can be found in <CIT> and <CIT>.

It is an object to provide an orientation determination device and method and a rendering device and method which allow/improve determining and using the orientation of the respective device. It is a further object to provide a corresponding computer program and a non-transitory computer-readable recording medium for implementing said methods.

According to the invention there is provided an orientation determination device as defined in claim <NUM>.

According to a preferred embodiment there is provided a rendering device as defined in claim <NUM>.

According to the invention, a corresponding method is further provided in claim <NUM> and a computer program is provided in claim <NUM>.

It shall be understood that the disclosed methods, the disclosed computer program and the disclosed computer-readable recording medium have similar and/or identical further embodiments as the claimed devices and as defined in the dependent claims and/or disclosed herein.

One of the aspects of the disclosure is to estimate, for devices located in a building, the orientation of the orientation determination device with respect to a specified reference coordinate system with the use of magnetic field information that stems from the magnetic sensor and a pre-recorded magnetic map of the building (area). This way either sensor cost and/or power consumption can be reduced (e.g. since no gyroscope and/or accelerometer data are needed) or the accuracy of the orientation estimation increased in terms of a sensor fusion process (when also gyroscope and/or accelerometer data are available). This technology is especially suited for mobile and wearable battery-driven devices as the involved sensors and computations can be realized with very low power consumption. The orientation estimate can be used for a wide range of applications ranging from "enhanced" compass-like navigation (direction + distance to target) to realizing virtual sound sources (targets) in a 2D/3D area independent of the user or device position and orientation (sound sources appear in static locations independent of head orientation and user position: augmented reality (AR) sound).

Before details of the present disclosure will be described, some definitions shall be given. The term "magnetic map" refers to either the magnetic map (comprising magnetic fingerprints) of a whole area, preferably indoors such as a building, or a sub-part of the magnetic map of the whole area, e.g. a sub-part of the building, such as a floor or a wing of the building. A magnetic map for use in the embodiments disclosed herein, or a suitable sub-part of the magnetic map, respectively, comprises magnetic fingerprints of a region around the magnetic field sensor. It can be selected based on a current position of the magnetic field sensor, for example a given position estimate and, optionally, its assumed confidence (e.g. estimated position accuracy), or by a user downloading a suitable magnetic map from a server, etc..

Magnetic field sensor data may, for example, be magnetic flow densities in x, y, and z directions of the magnetic field sensor's local coordinate system (i.e. in sensor coordinates) for a 3D sensor. An illustration of different representations of the magnetic field vector is shown in <FIG> illustrating coordinate definitions of a magnetic field vector. Example features of the magnetic field vector are magnetic field magnitude m, magnetic field inclination i, magnetic field azimuth a, magnetic field vertical component v, magnetic field horizontal component h, magnetic field Cartesian components (x, y, z) and their combinations. For example, the magnetic field vector may be represented by the feature magnetic field horizontal component h and magnetic field vertical component v. Alternatively, a representation by the feature magnetic field magnitude m and magnetic field inclination i can be used. For some situations, a further alternative representation by the magnetic field magnitude m, the magnetic field inclination i and the magnetic field azimuth a or a representation by the Cartesian components x, y and z may be chosen.

The magnitude of the geomagnetic field (sometimes also referred to as magnetic field vector) is simple to derive from a magnetic field measurement, e.g. by a magnetic field sensor, which process does generally not include any additional estimation process. Therefore, it is the most reliable information for geomagnetic fingerprinting. Unfortunately, similar magnitude values can often be found at different locations of the building, i.e. a geomagnetic field measurement can be assigned to several locations in the building with similar likelihood if only magnitude is considered and a corresponding one-dimensional feature vector is used.

The inclination of the geomagnetic field can be computed based on the magnetic field measurement and the direction of the earth's gravity field, which may be measured by an accelerometer. Aside from gravity, the accelerometer can also measure all other accelerations of the mobile/wearable device. Separation of the different acceleration sources is difficult and introduces errors to the estimation of the gravity direction. This in turn degrades the estimation accuracy of the geomagnetic field inclination. Nonetheless, this information can be used together with the magnitude of the geomagnetic field to obtain a two-dimensional feature vector for geomagnetic fingerprinting. Using the two-dimensional feature vector (fingerprint) reduces the amount of position ambiguities, as magnitude and inclination of the magnetic field are widely uncorrelated.

The azimuth information is more difficult to obtain as input for geomagnetic fingerprinting. In addition to the gravity direction an estimate of the mobile/wearable device heading may be needed, which is prone to estimation errors, especially due to the inherent drift of gyroscope sensor signal information. Consequently, the use of azimuth information for geomagnetic fingerprinting is typically limited to specific applications, e.g. for localization of robots. The sensors are typically fixed to the body of the robot which simplifies the estimation process and hence reduces the amount of estimation errors. Often, the z-coordinate is already aligned to the gravity direction, sensor heading and motion heading have a fixed relation, so that there is no need for step and step length estimation, etc..

<FIG> shows a schematic diagram of a first embodiment of an orientation determination device <NUM> according to the present disclosure.

The orientation determination device <NUM> comprises data input circuitry <NUM> configured to obtain magnetic field sensor data <NUM> comprising at least two magnetic field measurements sensed by one or more magnetic field sensors <NUM> (in this embodiment not part of the device <NUM>) at spatially separate positions and/or in separate frequency ranges and/or at different times and/or at different codes. Generally, the magnetic field sensor data <NUM> have been measured in sensor coordinates. The data input circuitry <NUM> may be represented by a data interface, e.g. an interface (such as a HDMI, USB, network interface, etc.) for data reception or retrieval, to receive or retrieve the magnetic field sensor data <NUM> directly from the one or more magnetic field sensors <NUM> or from a storage means (e.g. a data carrier, an electronic memory, a buffer, etc.; not shown) where the magnetic field sensor data <NUM> are stored or buffered.

The orientation determination device <NUM> further comprises a position input circuitry <NUM> configured to obtain a position estimate <NUM> of the one or more positions of the one or more magnetic field sensors <NUM>, at which the magnetic field sensor data have been acquired. The position input circuitry <NUM> may also be represented by a separate data interface, e.g. an interface (such as a HDMI, USB, network interface, etc.) for data reception or retrieval, to receive or retrieve the position estimate <NUM> e.g. from an internal or external position estimation circuitry <NUM>, or may be combined with the data input circuitry <NUM> into a common interface.

The orientation determination device <NUM> further comprises an estimation circuitry <NUM> configured to derive, from a magnetic map <NUM>, azimuth and inclination data at the one or more positions of the one or more magnetic field sensors indicated by the obtained position estimate and to estimate the orientation of the orientation determination device based on the obtained magnetic field sensor data and the azimuth and inclination data derived from the magnetic map <NUM>. Generally, the azimuth and inclination data are available in a reference coordinate system. The magnetic map <NUM> is generally acquired in advance and e.g. provided by a service provider, the owner or operator of a building in which the orientation determination shall be used, etc., and may be stored in a storage means (not shown; in this embodiment not being part of the device <NUM>) or provided by a server <NUM> (generally not being part of the device <NUM>), e.g. via the internet or another network. For example, a user may download a magnetic map of a location he wants to visit, or a suitable magnetic map may be downloaded or provided automatically based on current position information of (a device comprising or connected to) the one or more magnetic field sensors <NUM> (like GPS information obtained before entering a building, or upon detection of a Bluetooth beacon placed at an entry of a building etc.). The estimation circuitry <NUM> may e.g. be implemented in hard- and/or software, e.g. an appropriately programmed processor or computer.

Thus, according to the present disclosure it is possible to determine the orientation of the orientation determination device <NUM> in the reference coordinate system, i.e. in 3D coordinates, without much hard- and software efforts. Particularly if the x and y axes of the magnetic field sensor(s) are lying in a horizontal plane (e.g. if the magnetic field sensor(s) is (are) attached to a mobile robot), the comparison of the sensed magnetic field's azimuth against the magnetic map azimuth at this location directly provides the absolute heading of the device with respect to the reference coordinate system used to record the magnetic map. In the more general case the device can possess an arbitrary orientation in 3D space.

<FIG> shows a schematic diagram of a first embodiment of a rendering device <NUM> according to the present disclosure. The rendering device <NUM> may e.g. be a handheld device, a wearable device, a mobile phone, a smartphone, a portable phone, a camera, a smart watch, a vital signs monitor, a laptop, a tablet, smart glasses, headphones, earphones or any other portable device that may be carried around by a user.

The rendering device <NUM> comprises one or more magnetic field sensors <NUM> configured to sense magnetic field sensor data comprising at least two magnetic field measurements sensed at spatially separate positions and/or in separate frequency ranges and/or at different times and/or at different codes. The rendering device <NUM> further comprises an orientation determination device <NUM> as disclosed herein, e.g. in <FIG>, to determine orientation information indicating the orientation of the rendering device.

The rendering device <NUM> further comprises an orientation input circuitry <NUM> configured to obtain orientation information <NUM> indicating the orientation of the rendering device <NUM>. The orientation information <NUM> is obtained from the orientation determination device <NUM>. The rendering device <NUM> further comprises a position input circuitry <NUM> configured to obtain a position estimate <NUM> of the rendering device <NUM>, e.g. for retrieval or reception of the position estimate from an internal or external position estimation circuitry <NUM>. The rendering device <NUM> further comprises a target position input circuitry <NUM> configured to obtain target position information <NUM> indicating a target position of one or more targets, e.g. from a target information storage or server <NUM> (generally not being part of the rendering device <NUM>). The target may e.g. be virtual sound source, a virtual light source or any physical target, such as a certain location (e.g. a place that a user wants to reach like a certain department in a shopping mall or office building, a meeting area in a large building, a certain place of production in a large factory, etc.). The orientation input circuitry <NUM>, the position input circuitry <NUM> and the target position input circuitry <NUM> may be represented by separate data interfaces or a common interface, e.g. an interface (such as a HDMI, USB, network interface, etc.) for data reception or retrieval.

The rendering device <NUM> further comprises a relative target position determination circuitry <NUM> configured to determine the relative position <NUM> of the one or more targets with respect to the rendering device <NUM> based on the orientation information <NUM>, the obtained position estimate <NUM> and the obtained target position information <NUM>. Finally, the rendering device <NUM> further comprises rendering circuitry <NUM> configured to render target information <NUM> related to the one or more targets using the determined relative position <NUM> of the one or more targets.

With the disclosed rendering device the heading and/or orientation, preferably including a distance and direction estimate, can be used for different applications, such as enhanced compass-like navigation to a target or realization of virtual sound sources (targets) in a 2D/3D area independent of the user or device position and orientation, i.e. the realization of sound sources that appear in static locations independent of head orientation and user position and thus give the impression of an augmented reality sound.

According to the above disclosed embodiments an estimate of the position of the magnetic field sensor (<FIG>) and the rendering device (<FIG>), respectively, is used. Generally, it is not relevant how this estimate is determined. Internal or external means may be provided for this purpose. In the embodiments shown in <FIG> and <FIG> position estimation circuitry <NUM> is provided as external component that supplies the position estimate. In other embodiments the position estimation circuitry <NUM> is an internal component of the heading determination device <NUM> and the rendering device <NUM>, respectively.

The (external or internal) position estimation circuitry <NUM> may be configured to estimate the position of the one or more magnetic field sensors <NUM> based on non-magnetic information, e.g. from a communication system, WiFi access points or (e.g. Bluetooth) beacons or ultra-wideband systems. Geomagnetic fingerprinting using the obtained magnetic field sensor data <NUM> and the magnetic map <NUM> may also be used by the position estimation circuitry <NUM> provided as part of the heading determination device <NUM>. Assuming magnetic fingerprinting for localization, at least the magnitude (and optionally the inclination) of the magnetic field should be additionally considered to obtain reliable position estimates. Alternatively or additionally inclination, horizontal and/or vertical magnetic field components (with respect to earth coordinates) can be used to improve the position estimate. Moreover, a complementary technology may be used to obtain a unique location estimate from the geomagnetic field. One possibility is to use (pedestrian) dead reckoning (PDR) based on accelerometer and gyroscope data from on-device sensors, as proposed according to another embodiment.

The location of the orientation determination device can be either obtained by some non-magnetic localization system (e.g. Wi-Fi access points, Bluetooth beacons, ultra-wideband systems) or by means of magnetic fingerprinting. Assuming magnetic fingerprinting for localization, at least the magnitude of the magnetic field should be additionally considered to obtain reliable position estimates. Alternatively or additionally inclination, horizontal and/or vertical magnetic field components (with respect to earth coordinates) can be used to improve the position estimate. Moreover, a complementary technology may be required to obtain a unique location estimate from the geomagnetic field. One possibility is to use (pedestrian) dead reckoning ((P)DR) based on accelerometer and gyroscope data from on-device sensors, as proposed according to another embodiment.

The magnetic map <NUM> should contain at least the location-dependent azimuth of the (distorted) magnetic field with respect to a given reference coordinate system (e.g. the earth coordinate system) to obtain a 2D heading estimate. <FIG> shows an example of a magnetic map recorded in an office building. Here, the coordinate reference system's heading (<NUM> heading) is with respect to the axis of abscissae (x-axis). The example shows the distortions of the azimuth of the magnetic field (magnetic north with respect to the earth coordinates corresponds to -<NUM>° as indicated by the arrow D in <FIG>): The compass heading of the device would be distorted if the azimuth is different from -<NUM>°.

Particularly if the x- and y-axes of the one or more magnetic field sensors <NUM> are known to be lying in a horizontal plane (e.g. if the one or more sensors <NUM> are attached to a mobile robot), the comparison of the sensed magnetic field's azimuth against the magnetic map azimuth at this location directly provides the absolute heading of the one or more sensors <NUM> (and of a device incorporating the one or more sensors <NUM>, e.g. a user device such as a smartphone) with respect to the reference coordinate system used to record the magnetic map. The corresponding block diagram of the device is depicted in <FIG>.

In the more general case the device (in particular the magnetic field sensor) can possess an arbitrary orientation in 3D space. <FIG> shows a diagram illustrating device orientation by way of a smartphone <NUM> embedding the disclosed rendering system. This diagram explains the definitions of the orientation by means of three angles (roll, pitch and heading). Other representations of the orientation may be possible as well (e.g. by means of a freely defined rotation axis and angle as used in the following mathematical derivations). The roll/pitch information might be used for 3D rendering information (e.g. to derive 3D positions of virtual sound sources, as will be explained in more detail below). In case only the heading information <NUM> is used, mainly a 2D rendering is possible.

In order to estimate the 3D orientation of the device, a magnetic map that contains azimuth and inclination information of the magnetic field given with respect to a coordinate system, e.g. the earth coordinate system. Due to the rotational symmetry of a 3D magnetic field vector around its own axis a single magnetic field vector may not be sufficient to obtain the sensor's orientation. Thus, at least two <NUM>-dimensional magnetic field vectors pointing into different directions may be used. Different options exist to obtain multiple 3D magnetic field vectors, which are used is different embodiments of an orientation determination device illustrated in <FIG>. In these figures the interfaces (i.e. input circuitries <NUM> and <NUM>) have been left out for simplification of the illustration.

<FIG> shows a schematic diagram of a second embodiment of an orientation determination device 10a according to the present disclosure. In this embodiment the 3D magnetic field is measured with at least two locally separated magnetic field sensors 20a, 20b at the same time with both sensors 20a, 20b pointing into the same direction (or with known orientation offset to each other). This can be e.g. realized by attaching both sensors to a rigid rod. Thus, two magnetic field measurements 101a, 101b are used by the estimation circuitry <NUM> to determine the orientation <NUM> of the device 10a. Position estimates 102a, 102b of the positions of the two magnetic field sensors 20a, 20b are used to select the inclination information <NUM> and azimuth information <NUM> from the magnetic map <NUM> at these positions for use by the estimation circuitry <NUM>.

<FIG> shows a schematic diagram of a third embodiment of an orientation determination device 10b according to the present disclosure. In this embodiment the 3D magnetic field is measured with a single magnetic field sensor <NUM> at different time instances. The time interval between these measurements should be large enough to ensure that the position has sufficiently (e.g. more than <NUM> or <NUM>) changed during this time interval. This can e.g. be achieved by ensuring that the orientation of the sensor remains fixed during the time interval or by tracking the change in orientation between both measurements, e.g. by means of a gyroscope <NUM>, which forms a common sensor unit <NUM> together with the magnetic field sensor <NUM> and provides such tracking data <NUM>. In order to avoid accumulating orientation estimation errors, the time interval between both measurements should be sufficiently short, for example within several seconds for today's sensors. Hereby, the allowed time frame strongly depends on sensor quality (e.g. bias) and can be in fact much longer for high quality (e.g. military application) sensors.

<FIG> shows a schematic diagram of a fourth embodiment of an orientation determination device 10c according to the present disclosure. In this embodiment multiple 3D magnetic field vectors are measured at the same time (and possibly with the same sensor <NUM>), e.g. the geomagnetic field and a magnetic beacon signal which are separable in the frequency domain by appropriate filtering. Alternatively or additionally, multiple 3D magnetic field vectors may be measured at different times (and possibly with the same sensor <NUM>), e.g. the geomagnetic field and one or more magnetic beacon signals, wherein the one or more beacon signals are time-multiplexed and separable in the time domain by appropriate time demultiplexing and/or by (prior or acquired) knowledge of the timing (e.g. periodicity) of the beacon signals. Still further, in an embodiment, multiple 3D magnetic field vectors may be measured at different (e.g. orthogonal) codes (and possibly with the same sensor <NUM>), e.g. the geomagnetic field and one or more magnetic beacon signals, wherein the one or more beacon signals are code-multiplexed and separable based on the code used by appropriate code demultiplexing. In every case, for a 3D orientation estimation two vector measurements with corresponding reference vectors are generally needed, wherein the reference vectors have a different direction to avoid ambiguities in the 3D orientation estimate. This is independent of how these vectors are measured or what is causing the measured magnetic fields.

<FIG> shows a schematic diagram of a fifth embodiment of an orientation determination device 10d according to the present disclosure. In this embodiment a 3D orientation estimate based on two spatially or in frequency separated measurements of the magnetic field. The idea behind is to estimate the rotation matrix R that maps the measured 3D magnetic field vectors onto the corresponding magnetic map 3D vector. Provided that this estimation can be performed without ambiguity, the sensor orientation <NUM> can be obtained from the inverse rotation Γ = R-<NUM> of the magnetic map coordinate reference system.

There exist different ways to define a rotation in 3D space (e.g. rotation matrices or quaternions). In the following mathematical derivation the rotation is defined in terms of a normalized 3D rotation axis n = [n<NUM> n<NUM> n<NUM>]T and a rotation around n by angle α. In Cartesian representation the corresponding rotation matrix is defined as <MAT>.

For the sake of explanation, it is assumed that only two locally (or in some other domain) separated 3D magnetic field measurements ms,<NUM> and ms,<NUM> (in sensor coordinates) are made where each measurement can be related to a distinct magnetic map entry mp,<NUM> and mp,<NUM> (in earth coordinates), respectively. The relative rotation R(nrel,αrel) between sensor measurements <NUM> and <NUM> is either fixed or can be obtained from the gyroscope. It describes the relation between both sensor measurements, i.e. how ms,<NUM> is represented in the orientation of the sensor used to obtain ms,<NUM>: <MAT>.

In the most simple case, ms,<NUM> and ms,<NUM> are measured at the same time instant with different sensors which fixed to a rigid rod and both sensors are perfectly aligned in their axes. In this case Rrel = I<NUM>.

Starting e.g. with m̃s,<NUM>, the rotation matrix R(n<NUM>, α<NUM>) that maps m̃s,<NUM> to mp,<NUM> is computed, i.e. mp,<NUM> = R(n<NUM>, α<NUM>)m̃s,<NUM> where <MAT> <MAT>.

It should be noted that this rotation matrix still does not represent a unique solution due to the rotational symmetry of 3D vectors, in this case mp,<NUM>. Next, ms,<NUM> is rotated according to <MAT>.

In most cases it will be observed that m̃s,<NUM> still does not match with mp,<NUM> due to the aforementioned ambiguity. Thus, the final mapping may be achieved by another rotation around the ambiguity rotation axis given by the normalized vector <MAT>.

In order to obtain the rotation angle, the projection x<NUM> of mp,<NUM> on mp,<NUM> is projected: <MAT> and then derive the rotation angle α<NUM> as the angle between the vectors vS = m̃s,<NUM> - x<NUM> and <MAT> <MAT>.

Finally, multiplication of both estimated rotation matrices yields the final rotation matrix that describes the orientation of the device/sensor with respect to the reference coordinate system: <MAT>.

It should be noted that the derivation above includes some degrees of freedom, e.g. one could also use ms,<NUM> as starting point instead of m̃s,<NUM> or the relative rotation R(nrel, αrel) could describe how ms,<NUM> is represented in the orientation of the sensor used to obtain ms,<NUM>. The subsequent computation steps will change accordingly.

If more than two magnetic field measurements and corresponding position-related magnetic map entries are available, a weighted averaging can be applied to increase the accuracy of the orientation estimate. Especially the rotation angle estimation of the second rotation is prone to errors caused by noisy sensor signals and/or inaccurate position estimates used to look up the magnetic map entries. The shorter the vectors vs and/or vp are, the less reliable the heading estimate based on magnetic field information. It is thus proposed in another embodiment to use the vector length |vs| or |vp| or any mathematical function thereof as weight information for the magnetic field heading estimate in a joint heading estimation process based on gyroscope and magnetic field information. Exemplary weights w are:.

Many orientation algorithms using gyroscope and magnetic sensors (and potentially accelerometer) are based on an adaptive design (i.e. new orientation estimates are obtain based on the previous orientation estimate and the new incoming sensor data). Typically, a weighting factor β controls the weight between the relative update based on the gyroscope and the absolute update based on the magnetometer (and potentially accelerometer). We propose to make this weighting factor β dependent on the above factor w.

<FIG> shows a schematic diagram of a sixth embodiment of an orientation determination device 10e according to the present disclosure where magnetic fingerprinting is used for both orientation and location estimation. Here, the location in a magnetic fingerprinting unit <NUM> is estimated by comparing the current magnetic measurement <NUM> with the magnetic field data, in particular the magnitude <NUM> of the magnetic field, taken from the magnetic map <NUM>. If the 3D orientation estimation is based on only the magnetic field sensor, only the magnitude <NUM> can be used for fingerprinting, as the inclination information is used already for the orientation estimation and this degree of freedom may not be used twice. In case of 2D heading estimation or with roll/pitch estimation the inclination might be used as well for position estimation using magnetic fingerprinting.

The devices and methods according to the present disclosure are especially suited for mobile and wearable devices due to today's availability of the required sensors (accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer) in such devices and its low power consumption compared to other technologies such as Visual SLAM or wideband MIMO systems. The target(s) can be either indoor or outdoor, whereas the device is located indoor. Example applications are enhanced compass, which shows the relative distance and direction to target(s), and sound augmented reality (AR), according to which a virtual sound source is created at a specific location (or trajectory for moving targets) independent of the mobile device (user) location and heading.

The rendering process described above will now be explained in more detail for two different embodiments illustrated in <FIG> shows a diagram illustrating a sound AR application; <FIG> shows a diagram illustrating a corresponding embodiment of a rendering device 200a (the interfaces are not shown) for use in this application scenario, which may be embedded in a headphone <NUM>. The position of the target(s), represented by the target information <NUM>, corresponds to the virtual sound sources <NUM>, <NUM> in this embodiment. In a first step, the relative position of the sound sources <NUM>, <NUM> is calculated in a computation unit <NUM> based on the position estimate <NUM> and the orientation (or heading) information <NUM> of the user <NUM> and the position of the sound sources <NUM>, <NUM>. Next, the audio signals <NUM> of the sound sources <NUM>, <NUM> and the position <NUM> of the sound sources <NUM>, <NUM> relative to the user's position and orientation are used in a sound renderer <NUM> (e.g. Dolby surround or any other surround sound system ) to generate the sound signals <NUM> to be played back by the headphones <NUM>. A beacon, e.g. a BLE (Bluetooth low energy) beacon at the entrance (and optionally exit) may be used to notice that a user enters the area in which this application scenario shall be used.

<FIG> shows a schematic diagram of a third embodiment of a rendering device 200b according to the present disclosure for use in a second application scenario, in particular for an enhanced compass application. Here, the position of the targets may correspond to any point(s) of interest (e.g. a certain store, product, Pokémon, treasure (gaming), person, etc.). Again, the relative position of the target(s) is calculated based on the position estimate <NUM> and the orientation (or heading) information <NUM> of the user and the position of the targets represented by the target information <NUM>. Based on this result, some display information <NUM> by the display renderer <NUM> is derived, e.g. the heading towards the target relative to the device orientation (e.g. smartwatch or smartphone) and the distance. This information may be combined with some additional information <NUM> about the target to be illustrated on the display of e.g. the mobile device.

In another embodiment both applications may be combined to realize navigation by "follow sound source". Here, virtual sound sources guide the user in the direction of the point of interest, e.g. where the sound source appears at the location of the target itself (or direction of the target e.g. <NUM> away from the user).

The targets may be selected based on the current position estimate, e.g. by approaching a certain exhibition object in a museum some audio information is played back coming from the exhibition object. Also, the targets may move, e.g. some narrator is explaining something while walking (the voice appears to your right hand side as if a person is walking beside you, etc.). In case of the navigation by "follow sound source" the sound source may change depending on the user's current position, e.g. the sound appears in front of user in order to guide the user in the right direction. The sound source is updated to follow the navigation path: typically, the direct way to the target is not possible and the user has to follow some hallways or move around corners, etc..

Essential advantages can be achieved by the present disclosure:.

Thus, the foregoing discussion discloses and describes merely exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure. As will be understood by those skilled in the art, the present disclosure may be embodied in other specific forms without departing from the scope defined by the appended claims.

Further, such a software may also be distributed in other forms, such as via the Internet or other wired or wireless telecommunication systems.

Claim 1:
An orientation determination device (<NUM>) comprising:
- data input circuitry (<NUM>) configured to obtain magnetic field sensor data comprising at least two magnetic field measurements sensed by one or more magnetic field sensors (20a, 20b) at spatially separate positions and/or in separate frequency ranges and/or at different times and/or at different codes,
- position input circuitry (<NUM>) configured to obtain a position estimate of the one or more positions of the one or more magnetic field sensors at which the magnetic field sensor data have been acquired, and
- estimation circuitry (<NUM>) configured to derive, from a magnetic map, azimuth and inclination data at the one or more positions of the one or more magnetic field sensors indicated by the obtained position estimate and to estimate the orientation of the orientation determination device based on the obtained magnetic field sensor data and the azimuth and inclination data derived from the magnetic map,
wherein said data input circuitry (<NUM>) is configured to obtain magnetic field sensor data comprising
i) magnetic field measurements sensed by a single magnetic field sensor at different time instances and at spatially separate positions, wherein the orientation of the single magnetic field sensor at said spatially separate positions is fixed or tracked by an orientation sensor (<NUM>) forming a common sensor unit (<NUM>) together with the magnetic field sensor (<NUM>) or
ii) magnetic field measurements sensed by a single magnetic field sensor in separate frequency ranges and/or at different times and/or at different codes, wherein one of said magnetic field measurements represents a magnetic beacon signal in a frequency range used by one or more magnetic beacons and/or emitted at a time used by one or more magnetic beacons and/or with a code used by one or more magnetic beacons.