19 research outputs found
Cooperative Localization under Limited Connectivity
We report two decentralized multi-agent cooperative localization algorithms
in which, to reduce the communication cost, inter-agent state estimate
correlations are not maintained but accounted for implicitly. In our first
algorithm, to guarantee filter consistency, we account for unknown inter-agent
correlations via an upper bound on the joint covariance matrix of the agents.
In the second method, we use an optimization framework to estimate the unknown
inter-agent cross-covariance matrix. In our algorithms, each agent localizes
itself in a global coordinate frame using a local filter driven by local dead
reckoning and occasional absolute measurement updates, and opportunistically
corrects its pose estimate whenever it can obtain relative measurements with
respect to other mobile agents. To process any relative measurement, only the
agent taken the measurement and the agent the measurement is taken from need to
communicate with each other. Consequently, our algorithms are decentralized
algorithms that do not impose restrictive network-wide connectivity condition.
Moreover, we make no assumptions about the type of agents or relative
measurements. We demonstrate our algorithms in simulation and a
robotic~experiment.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figure
Cooperative localization for mobile agents: a recursive decentralized algorithm based on Kalman filter decoupling
We consider cooperative localization technique for mobile agents with
communication and computation capabilities. We start by provide and overview of
different decentralization strategies in the literature, with special focus on
how these algorithms maintain an account of intrinsic correlations between
state estimate of team members. Then, we present a novel decentralized
cooperative localization algorithm that is a decentralized implementation of a
centralized Extended Kalman Filter for cooperative localization. In this
algorithm, instead of propagating cross-covariance terms, each agent propagates
new intermediate local variables that can be used in an update stage to create
the required propagated cross-covariance terms. Whenever there is a relative
measurement in the network, the algorithm declares the agent making this
measurement as the interim master. By acquiring information from the interim
landmark, the agent the relative measurement is taken from, the interim master
can calculate and broadcast a set of intermediate variables which each robot
can then use to update its estimates to match that of a centralized Extended
Kalman Filter for cooperative localization. Once an update is done, no further
communication is needed until the next relative measurement
Cascaded Filtering Using the Sigma Point Transformation (Extended Version)
It is often convenient to separate a state estimation task into smaller
"local" tasks, where each local estimator estimates a subset of the overall
system state. However, neglecting cross-covariance terms between state
estimates can result in overconfident estimates, which can ultimately degrade
the accuracy of the estimator. Common cascaded filtering techniques focus on
the problem of modelling cross-covariances when the local estimators share a
common state vector. This letter introduces a novel cascaded and decentralized
filtering approach that approximates the cross-covariances when the local
estimators consider distinct state vectors. The proposed estimator is validated
in simulations and in experiments on a three-dimensional attitude and position
estimation problem. The proposed approach is compared to a naive cascaded
filtering approach that neglects cross-covariance terms, a sigma point-based
Covariance Intersection filter, and a full-state filter. In both simulations
and experiments, the proposed filter outperforms the naive and the Covariance
Intersection filters, while performing comparatively to the full-state filter.Comment: This is an extended version of the original letter to be published in
the IEEE Robotics and Automation Letter
Cooperative Visual-Inertial Sensor Fusion: Fundamental Equations
International audienceThis paper provides a new theoretical and basic result in the framework of cooperative visual-inertial sensor fusion. Specifically, the case of two aerial vehicles is investigated. Each vehicle is equipped with inertial sensors (accelerometer and gyroscope) and with a monocular camera. By using the monocular camera, each vehicle can observe the other vehicle. No additional camera observations (e.g., of external point features in the environment) are considered. First, the entire observable state is analytically derived. This state includes the relative position between the two aerial vehicles (which includes the absolute scale), the relative velocity and the three Euler angles that express the rotation between the two vehicle frames. Then, the basic equations that describe this system are analytically obtained. In other words, both the dynamics of the observable state and all the camera observations are expressed only in terms of the components of the observable state and in terms of the inertial measurements. These are the fundamental equations that fully characterize the problem of fusing visual and inertial data in the cooperative case. The last part of the paper describes the use of these equations to achieve the state estimation through an EKF. In particular, a simple manner to limit communication among the vehicles is discussed. Results obtained through simulations show the performance of the proposed solution, and in particular how it is affected by limiting the communication between the two vehicles