Passive magnetic sensors measure the magnetic field density in three axes and are often integrated on a single chip. These low-cost\nsensors are widely used in car navigation as well as in battery powered navigation equipment such as smartphones as part of an\nelectronic compass. We focus on a train localization application with multiple, exclusively onboard sensors and a track map.This\napproach is considered as a base technology for future railway applications such as collision avoidance systems or autonomous train\ndriving. In this paper, we address the following question: how beneficial are passive magnetic measurements for train localization?\nWe present and analyze measurements of two differentmagnetometers recorded on a regional train at regular passenger service.We\nshow promising correlations of the measurements with the track positions and the traveled switch way.The processed data reveals\nthat the railway environment has repeatable, location-dependent magnetic signatures. This is considered as a novel approach to\ntrain localization, as the use of these magnetic signals at first view is not obvious. The proposed methods based on passive magnetic\nmeasurements show a high potential to be integrated in new and existing train localization approaches.
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