This paper presents an efficient algorithm for using the two-axis magnetic compass in portable devices. The general magnetic compass module consists of a three-axis magnetic compass and a two-axis inclinometer to calculate tilt-compensated azimuth information. In this paper, the tilt error is compensated using just a two-axis magnetic compass and two-axis accelerometer. The third-axis data of the magnetic compass is estimated using coordinate information that includes the extended dip angle and

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... tilt information. The extended dip angle is estimated during the normalization process. This algorithm can be used to provide the tilt-compensated heading information to small portable devices such as navigation systems, PDAs, cell phones, and so on.