6,320 research outputs found
Non-iterative RGB-D-inertial Odometry
This paper presents a non-iterative solution to RGB-D-inertial odometry
system. Traditional odometry methods resort to iterative algorithms which are
usually computationally expensive or require well-designed initialization. To
overcome this problem, this paper proposes to combine a non-iterative front-end
(odometry) with an iterative back-end (loop closure) for the RGB-D-inertial
SLAM system. The main contribution lies in the novel non-iterative front-end,
which leverages on inertial fusion and kernel cross-correlators (KCC) to match
point clouds in frequency domain. Dominated by the fast Fourier transform
(FFT), our method is only of complexity , where is
the number of points. Map fusion is conducted by element-wise operations, so
that both time and space complexity are further reduced. Extensive experiments
show that, due to the lightweight of the proposed front-end, the framework is
able to run at a much faster speed yet still with comparable accuracy with the
state-of-the-arts
Single and multiple stereo view navigation for planetary rovers
© Cranfield UniversityThis thesis deals with the challenge of autonomous navigation of the ExoMars rover.
The absence of global positioning systems (GPS) in space, added to the limitations
of wheel odometry makes autonomous navigation based on these two techniques - as
done in the literature - an inviable solution and necessitates the use of other approaches.
That, among other reasons, motivates this work to use solely visual data to solve the
robot’s Egomotion problem.
The homogeneity of Mars’ terrain makes the robustness of the low level image
processing technique a critical requirement. In the first part of the thesis, novel solutions
are presented to tackle this specific problem. Detection of robust features against
illumination changes and unique matching and association of features is a sought after
capability. A solution for robustness of features against illumination variation is proposed
combining Harris corner detection together with moment image representation.
Whereas the first provides a technique for efficient feature detection, the moment images
add the necessary brightness invariance. Moreover, a bucketing strategy is used
to guarantee that features are homogeneously distributed within the images. Then, the
addition of local feature descriptors guarantees the unique identification of image cues.
In the second part, reliable and precise motion estimation for the Mars’s robot is
studied. A number of successful approaches are thoroughly analysed. Visual Simultaneous
Localisation And Mapping (VSLAM) is investigated, proposing enhancements
and integrating it with the robust feature methodology. Then, linear and nonlinear optimisation
techniques are explored. Alternative photogrammetry reprojection concepts
are tested. Lastly, data fusion techniques are proposed to deal with the integration of
multiple stereo view data.
Our robust visual scheme allows good feature repeatability. Because of this,
dimensionality reduction of the feature data can be used without compromising the
overall performance of the proposed solutions for motion estimation. Also, the developed
Egomotion techniques have been extensively validated using both simulated and
real data collected at ESA-ESTEC facilities. Multiple stereo view solutions for robot
motion estimation are introduced, presenting interesting benefits. The obtained results
prove the innovative methods presented here to be accurate and reliable approaches
capable to solve the Egomotion problem in a Mars environment
FGO-ILNS: Tightly Coupled Multi-Sensor Integrated Navigation System Based on Factor Graph Optimization for Autonomous Underwater Vehicle
Multi-sensor fusion is an effective way to enhance the positioning
performance of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). However, underwater
multi-sensor fusion faces challenges such as heterogeneous frequency and
dynamic availability of sensors. Traditional filter-based algorithms suffer
from low accuracy and robustness when sensors become unavailable. The factor
graph optimization (FGO) can enable multi-sensor plug-and-play despite data
frequency. Therefore, we present an FGO-based strapdown inertial navigation
system (SINS) and long baseline location (LBL) system tightly coupled
navigation system (FGO-ILNS). Sensors such as Doppler velocity log (DVL),
magnetic compass pilot (MCP), pressure sensor (PS), and global navigation
satellite system (GNSS) can be tightly coupled with FGO-ILNS to satisfy
different navigation scenarios. In this system, we propose a floating LBL slant
range difference factor model tightly coupled with IMU preintegration factor to
achieve unification of global position above and below water. Furthermore, to
address the issue of sensor measurements not being synchronized with the LBL
during fusion, we employ forward-backward IMU preintegration to construct
sensor factors such as GNSS and DVL. Moreover, we utilize the marginalization
method to reduce the computational load of factor graph optimization.
Simulation and public KAIST dataset experiments have verified that, compared to
filter-based algorithms like the extended Kalman filter and federal Kalman
filter, as well as the state-of-the-art optimization-based algorithm ORB-SLAM3,
our proposed FGO-ILNS leads in accuracy and robustness
Kernel Cross-Correlator
Cross-correlator plays a significant role in many visual perception tasks,
such as object detection and tracking. Beyond the linear cross-correlator, this
paper proposes a kernel cross-correlator (KCC) that breaks traditional
limitations. First, by introducing the kernel trick, the KCC extends the linear
cross-correlation to non-linear space, which is more robust to signal noises
and distortions. Second, the connection to the existing works shows that KCC
provides a unified solution for correlation filters. Third, KCC is applicable
to any kernel function and is not limited to circulant structure on training
data, thus it is able to predict affine transformations with customized
properties. Last, by leveraging the fast Fourier transform (FFT), KCC
eliminates direct calculation of kernel vectors, thus achieves better
performance yet still with a reasonable computational cost. Comprehensive
experiments on visual tracking and human activity recognition using wearable
devices demonstrate its robustness, flexibility, and efficiency. The source
codes of both experiments are released at https://github.com/wang-chen/KCCComment: The Thirty-Second AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence
(AAAI-18
Object-based 2D-to-3D video conversion for effective stereoscopic content generation in 3D-TV applications
Three-dimensional television (3D-TV) has gained increasing popularity in the broadcasting domain, as it enables enhanced viewing experiences in comparison to conventional two-dimensional (2D) TV. However, its application has been constrained due to the lack of essential contents, i.e., stereoscopic videos. To alleviate such content shortage, an economical and practical solution is to reuse the huge media resources that are available in monoscopic 2D and convert them to stereoscopic 3D. Although stereoscopic video can be generated from monoscopic sequences using depth measurements extracted from cues like focus blur, motion and size, the quality of the resulting video may be poor as such measurements are usually arbitrarily defined and appear inconsistent with the real scenes. To help solve this problem, a novel method for object-based stereoscopic video generation is proposed which features i) optical-flow based occlusion reasoning in determining depth ordinal, ii) object segmentation using improved region-growing from masks of determined depth layers, and iii) a hybrid depth estimation scheme using content-based matching (inside a small library of true stereo image pairs) and depth-ordinal based regularization. Comprehensive experiments have validated the effectiveness of our proposed 2D-to-3D conversion method in generating stereoscopic videos of consistent depth measurements for 3D-TV applications
An Effective Multi-Cue Positioning System for Agricultural Robotics
The self-localization capability is a crucial component for Unmanned Ground
Vehicles (UGV) in farming applications. Approaches based solely on visual cues
or on low-cost GPS are easily prone to fail in such scenarios. In this paper,
we present a robust and accurate 3D global pose estimation framework, designed
to take full advantage of heterogeneous sensory data. By modeling the pose
estimation problem as a pose graph optimization, our approach simultaneously
mitigates the cumulative drift introduced by motion estimation systems (wheel
odometry, visual odometry, ...), and the noise introduced by raw GPS readings.
Along with a suitable motion model, our system also integrates two additional
types of constraints: (i) a Digital Elevation Model and (ii) a Markov Random
Field assumption. We demonstrate how using these additional cues substantially
reduces the error along the altitude axis and, moreover, how this benefit
spreads to the other components of the state. We report exhaustive experiments
combining several sensor setups, showing accuracy improvements ranging from 37%
to 76% with respect to the exclusive use of a GPS sensor. We show that our
approach provides accurate results even if the GPS unexpectedly changes
positioning mode. The code of our system along with the acquired datasets are
released with this paper.Comment: Accepted for publication in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters,
201
A Fusion Approach for Multi-Frame Optical Flow Estimation
To date, top-performing optical flow estimation methods only take pairs of
consecutive frames into account. While elegant and appealing, the idea of using
more than two frames has not yet produced state-of-the-art results. We present
a simple, yet effective fusion approach for multi-frame optical flow that
benefits from longer-term temporal cues. Our method first warps the optical
flow from previous frames to the current, thereby yielding multiple plausible
estimates. It then fuses the complementary information carried by these
estimates into a new optical flow field. At the time of writing, our method
ranks first among published results in the MPI Sintel and KITTI 2015
benchmarks. Our models will be available on https://github.com/NVlabs/PWC-Net.Comment: Work accepted at IEEE Winter Conference on Applications of Computer
Vision (WACV 2019
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