FLAT2D: Fast localization from approximate transformation into 2D

Many autonomous vehicles require precise localization into a prior map in order to support planning and to leverage semantic information within those maps (e.g. that the right lane is a turn-only lane.) A popular approach in automotive systems is to use infrared intensity maps of the ground surface to localize, making them susceptible to failures when the surface is obscured by snow or when the road is repainted. An emerging alternative is to localize based on the 3D structure around the vehicle; these methods are robust to these types of changes, but the maps are costly both in terms of storage and the computational cost of matching. In this paper, we propose a fast method for localizing based on 3D structure around the vehicle using a 2D representation. This representation retains many of the advantages of "full" matching in 3D, but comes with dramatically lower space and computational requirements. We also introduce a variation of Graph-SLAM tailored to support localization, allowing us to make use of graph-based error-recovery techniques in our localization estimate. Finally, we present real-world localization results for both an indoor mobile robotic platform and an autonomous golf cart, demonstrating that autonomous vehicles do not need full 3D matching to accurately localize in the environment

3D Reconstruction & Assessment Framework based on affordable 2D Lidar

Lidar is extensively used in the industry and mass-market. Due to its measurement accuracy and insensitivity to illumination compared to cameras, It is applied onto a broad range of applications, like geodetic engineering, self driving cars or virtual reality. But the 3D Lidar with multi-beam is very expensive, and the massive measurements data can not be fully leveraged on some constrained platforms. The purpose of this paper is to explore the possibility of using cheap 2D Lidar off-the-shelf, to preform complex 3D Reconstruction, moreover, the generated 3D map quality is evaluated by our proposed metrics at the end. The 3D map is constructed in two ways, one way in which the scan is performed at known positions with an external rotary axis at another plane. The other way, in which the 2D Lidar for mapping and another 2D Lidar for localization are placed on a trolley, the trolley is pushed on the ground arbitrarily. The generated maps by different approaches are converted to octomaps uniformly before the evaluation. The similarity and difference between two maps will be evaluated by the proposed metrics thoroughly. The whole mapping system is composed of several modular components. A 3D bracket was made for assembling of the Lidar with a long range, the driver and the motor together. A cover platform made for the IMU and 2D Lidar with a shorter range but high accuracy. The software is stacked up in different ROS packages.Comment: 7 pages, 9 Postscript figures. Accepted by 2018 IEEE International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronic

Evaluating the Capability of OpenStreetMap for Estimating Vehicle Localization Error

Accurate localization is an important part of successful autonomous driving. Recent studies suggest that when using map-based localization methods, the representation and layout of real-world phenomena within the prebuilt map is a source of error. To date, the investigations have been limited to 3D point clouds and normal distribution (ND) maps. This paper explores the potential of using OpenStreetMap (OSM) as a proxy to estimate vehicle localization error. Specifically, the experiment uses random forest regression to estimate mean 3D localization error from map matching using LiDAR scans and ND maps. Six map evaluation factors were defined for 2D geographic information in a vector format. Initial results for a 1.2 km path in Shinjuku, Tokyo, show that vehicle localization error can be estimated with 56.3% model prediction accuracy with two existing OSM data layers only. When OSM data quality issues (inconsistency and completeness) were addressed, the model prediction accuracy was improved to 73.1%

CPO: Change Robust Panorama to Point Cloud Localization

We present CPO, a fast and robust algorithm that localizes a 2D panorama with respect to a 3D point cloud of a scene possibly containing changes. To robustly handle scene changes, our approach deviates from conventional feature point matching, and focuses on the spatial context provided from panorama images. Specifically, we propose efficient color histogram generation and subsequent robust localization using score maps. By utilizing the unique equivariance of spherical projections, we propose very fast color histogram generation for a large number of camera poses without explicitly rendering images for all candidate poses. We accumulate the regional consistency of the panorama and point cloud as 2D/3D score maps, and use them to weigh the input color values to further increase robustness. The weighted color distribution quickly finds good initial poses and achieves stable convergence for gradient-based optimization. CPO is lightweight and achieves effective localization in all tested scenarios, showing stable performance despite scene changes, repetitive structures, or featureless regions, which are typical challenges for visual localization with perspective cameras.Comment: Accepted to ECCV 202

Estimating Autonomous Vehicle Localization Error Using 2D Geographic Information

Accurately and precisely knowing the location of the vehicle is a critical requirement for safe and successful autonomous driving. Recent studies suggest that error for map-based localization methods are tightly coupled with the surrounding environment. Considering this relationship, it is therefore possible to estimate localization error by quantifying the representation and layout of real-world phenomena. To date, existing work on estimating localization error have been limited to using self-collected 3D point cloud maps. This paper investigates the use of pre-existing 2D geographic information datasets as a proxy to estimate autonomous vehicle localization error. Seven map evaluation factors were defined for 2D geographic information in a vector format, and random forest regression was used to estimate localization error for five experiment paths in Shinjuku, Tokyo. In the best model, the results show that it is possible to estimate autonomous vehicle localization error with 69.8% of predictions within 2.5 cm and 87.4% within 5 cm

2D-3D Pose Tracking with Multi-View Constraints

Camera localization in 3D LiDAR maps has gained increasing attention due to its promising ability to handle complex scenarios, surpassing the limitations of visual-only localization methods. However, existing methods mostly focus on addressing the cross-modal gaps, estimating camera poses frame by frame without considering the relationship between adjacent frames, which makes the pose tracking unstable. To alleviate this, we propose to couple the 2D-3D correspondences between adjacent frames using the 2D-2D feature matching, establishing the multi-view geometrical constraints for simultaneously estimating multiple camera poses. Specifically, we propose a new 2D-3D pose tracking framework, which consists: a front-end hybrid flow estimation network for consecutive frames and a back-end pose optimization module. We further design a cross-modal consistency-based loss to incorporate the multi-view constraints during the training and inference process. We evaluate our proposed framework on the KITTI and Argoverse datasets. Experimental results demonstrate its superior performance compared to existing frame-by-frame 2D-3D pose tracking methods and state-of-the-art vision-only pose tracking algorithms. More online pose tracking videos are available at \url{https://youtu.be/yfBRdg7gw5M}Comment: This work has been submitted to the IEEE for possible publication. Copyright may be transferred without notice, after which this version may no longer be accessibl

Virtual and topological coordinate based routing, mobility tracking and prediction in 2D and 3D wireless sensor networks

2013 Fall.Includes bibliographical references.A Virtual Coordinate System (VCS) for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) characterizes each sensor node's location using the minimum number of hops to a specific set of sensor nodes called anchors. VCS does not require geographic localization hardware such as Global Positioning System (GPS), or localization algorithms based on Received Signal Strength Indication (RSSI) measurements. Topological Coordinates (TCs) are derived from Virtual Coordinates (VCs) of networks using Singular Value Decomposition (SVD). Topology Preserving Maps (TPMs) based on TCs contain 2D or 3D network topology and directional information that are lost in VCs. This thesis extends the scope of VC and TC based techniques to 3D sensor networks and networks with mobile nodes. Specifically, we apply existing Extreme Node Search (ENS) for anchor placement for 3D WSNs. 3D Geo-Logical Routing (3D-GLR), a routing algorithm for 3D sensor networks that alternates between VC and TC domains is evaluated. VC and TC based methods have hitherto been used only in static networks. We develop methods to use VCs in mobile networks, including the generation of coordinates, for mobile sensors without having to regenerate VCs every time the topology changes. 2D and 3D Topological Coordinate based Tracking and Prediction (2D-TCTP and 3D-TCTP) are novel algorithms developed for mobility tracking and prediction in sensor networks without the need of physical distance measurements. Most existing 2D sensor networking algorithms fail or perform poorly in 3D networks. Developing VC and TC based algorithms for 3D sensor networks is crucial to benefit from the scalability, adjustability and flexibility of VCs as well as to overcome the many disadvantages associated with geographic coordinate systems. Existing ENS algorithm for 2D sensor networks plays a key role in providing a good anchor placement and we continue to use ENS algorithm for anchor selection in 3D network. Additionally, we propose a comparison algorithm for ENS algorithm named Double-ENS algorithm which uses two independent pairs of initial anchors and thereby increases the coverage of ENS anchors in 3D networks, in order to further prove if anchor selection from original ENS algorithm is already optimal. Existing Geo-Logical Routing (GLR) algorithm demonstrates very good routing performance by switching between greedy forwarding in virtual and topological domains in 2D sensor networks. Proposed 3D-GLR extends the algorithm to 3D networks by replacing 2D TCs with 3D TCs in TC distance calculation. Simulation results show that the 3D-GLR algorithm with ENS anchor placement can significantly outperform current Geographic Coordinates (GCs) based 3D Greedy Distributed Spanning Tree Routing (3D-GDSTR) algorithm in various network environments. This demonstrates the effectiveness of ENS algorithm and 3D-GLR algorithm in 3D sensor networks. Tracking and communicating with mobile sensors has so far required the use of localization or geographic information. This thesis presents a novel approach to achieve tracking and communication without geographic information, thus significantly reducing the hardware cost and energy consumption. Mobility of sensors in WSNs is considered under two scenarios: dynamic deployment and continuous movement. An efficient VC generation scheme, which uses the average of neighboring sensors' VCs, is proposed for newly deployed sensors to get coordinates without flooding based VC generation. For the second scenario, a prediction and tracking algorithm called 2D-TCTP for continuously moving sensors is developed for 2D sensor networks. Predicted location of a mobile sensor at a future time is calculated based on current sampled velocity and direction in topological domain. The set of sensors inside an ellipse-shaped detection area around the predicted future location is alerted for the arrival of mobile sensor for communication or detection purposes. Using TPMs as a 2D guide map, tracking and prediction performances can be achieved similar to those based on GCs. A simple modification for TPMs generation is proposed, which considers radial information contained in the first principle component from SVD. This modification improves the compression or folding at the edges that has been observed in TPMs, and thus the accuracy of tracking. 3D-TCTP uses a detection area in the shape of a 3D sphere. 3D-TCTP simulation results are similar to 2D-TCTP and show competence comparable to the same algorithms based on GCs although without any 3D geographic information