Portable Physiological Data Apparatus with Motion-Filtered GPS Speed
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Solution Overview
Problem
GPS receivers often fail to determine user speed with sufficient reliability, especially during walking or running, due to limitations in integrated circuits, antennas, power, sampling rate, and external factors like reflections and weather conditions affecting signal quality.
Innovation Solution
A portable apparatus with a first interface for inputting speed or location data from a positioning unit using external reference points and a second interface for inputting motion data from a self-contained activity determining unit, which processes the data to filter and determine physiological metrics by selecting appropriate filtering characteristics based on motion data.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If GPS positioning unit is used to determine user speed, then location data can be obtained, but speed data reliability deteriorates during walking or running due to signal quality issues
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces motion data from an activity determining unit as an intermediary to filter and calibrate GPS speed data. The motion data serves as a mediator that helps identify and remove outliers in GPS speed measurements, thereby improving reliability without sacrificing precision.
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses motion data as feedback to continuously evaluate and filter GPS speed data. By comparing GPS-derived speed with motion-based speed estimates, the system can identify unreliable measurements and correct them, creating a feedback loop that maintains data quality.
2Measurement precision
If filtering is applied to improve speed data quality, then measurement precision improves, but device complexity increases due to additional processing requirements
Solution Approach 1:
The system uses the activity determining unit, which is already present for other functions, to also provide filtering capabilities for GPS speed data. This self-service approach allows the existing motion sensing capabilities to serve dual purposes: activity tracking and GPS data validation, avoiding additional complex filtering hardware.
3Reliability
If multiple data sources are integrated to improve reliability, then speed data reliability improves, but device complexity increases due to multiple interfaces and processing units
Solution Approach 1:
The activity determining unit is designed to serve multiple functions: it tracks user activity for fitness monitoring and simultaneously provides motion data for filtering GPS speed measurements. This multi-functionality allows the system to integrate multiple data sources without proportionally increasing complexity, as the same hardware serves dual purposes.
Data Source
AI summary
A portable apparatus including a first interface configured to input speed data of a user or location data of the user from a positioning unit utilizing external reference points is disclosed. The portable apparatus also includes a second interface configured to input motion data of a user from a self-contained activity determining unit. Furthermore, the portable apparatus includes a processing unit configured to constitute, if the first interface only inputs the location data, speed data from the location data, select filtering characteristics based on the motion data, filter the speed data with the selected filtering characteristics, and determine physiological data of the user with the filtered speed data.