CES-515 Towards Localization and Mapping of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles: A Survey

Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) have been used for a huge number of tasks ranging from commercial, military and research areas etc, while the fundamental function of a successful AUV is its localization and mapping ability. This report aims to review the relevant elements of localization and mapping for AUVs. First, a brief introduction of the concept and the historical development of AUVs is given; then a relatively detailed description of the sensor system used for AUV navigation is provided. As the main part of the report, a comprehensive investigation of the simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) for AUVs are conducted, including its application examples. Finally a brief conclusion is summarized

Theory, Design, and Implementation of Landmark Promotion Cooperative Simultaneous Localization and Mapping

Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) is a challenging problem in practice, the use of multiple robots and inexpensive sensors poses even more demands on the designer. Cooperative SLAM poses specific challenges in the areas of computational efficiency, software/network performance, and robustness to errors. New methods in image processing, recursive filtering, and SLAM have been developed to implement practical algorithms for cooperative SLAM on a set of inexpensive robots. The Consolidated Unscented Mixed Recursive Filter (CUMRF) is designed to handle non-linear systems with non-Gaussian noise. This is accomplished using the Unscented Transform combined with Gaussian Mixture Models. The Robust Kalman Filter is an extension of the Kalman Filter algorithm that improves the ability to remove erroneous observations using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and the X84 outlier rejection rule. Forgetful SLAM is a local SLAM technique that runs in nearly constant time relative to the number of visible landmarks and improves poor performing sensors through sensor fusion and outlier rejection. Forgetful SLAM correlates all measured observations, but stops the state from growing over time. Hierarchical Active Ripple SLAM (HAR-SLAM) is a new SLAM architecture that breaks the traditional state space of SLAM into a chain of smaller state spaces, allowing multiple robots, multiple sensors, and multiple updates to occur in linear time with linear storage with respect to the number of robots, landmarks, and robots poses. This dissertation presents explicit methods for closing-the-loop, joining multiple robots, and active updates. Landmark Promotion SLAM is a hierarchy of new SLAM methods, using the Robust Kalman Filter, Forgetful SLAM, and HAR-SLAM. Practical aspects of SLAM are a focus of this dissertation. LK-SURF is a new image processing technique that combines Lucas-Kanade feature tracking with Speeded-Up Robust Features to perform spatial and temporal tracking. Typical stereo correspondence techniques fail at providing descriptors for features, or fail at temporal tracking. Several calibration and modeling techniques are also covered, including calibrating stereo cameras, aligning stereo cameras to an inertial system, and making neural net system models. These methods are important to improve the quality of the data and images acquired for the SLAM process

Towards autonomous localization and mapping of AUVs: a survey

Purpose The main purpose of this paper is to investigate two key elements of localization and mapping of Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV), i.e. to overview various sensors and algorithms used for underwater localization and mapping, and to make suggestions for future research. Design/methodology/approach The authors first review various sensors and algorithms used for AUVs in the terms of basic working principle, characters, their advantages and disadvantages. The statistical analysis is carried out by studying 35 AUV platforms according to the application circumstances of sensors and algorithms. Findings As real-world applications have different requirements and specifications, it is necessary to select the most appropriate one by balancing various factors such as accuracy, cost, size, etc. Although highly accurate localization and mapping in an underwater environment is very difficult, more and more accurate and robust navigation solutions will be achieved with the development of both sensors and algorithms. Research limitations/implications This paper provides an overview of the state of art underwater localisation and mapping algorithms and systems. No experiments are conducted for verification. Practical implications The paper will give readers a clear guideline to find suitable underwater localisation and mapping algorithms and systems for their practical applications in hand. Social implications There is a wide range of audiences who will benefit from reading this comprehensive survey of autonomous localisation and mapping of UAVs. Originality/value The paper will provide useful information and suggestions to research students, engineers and scientists who work in the field of autonomous underwater vehicles

Enhanced Unscented Kalman Filter-Based SLAM in Dynamic Environments: Euclidean Approach

This paper introduces an innovative approach to Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) using the Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF) in a dynamic environment. The UKF is proven to be a robust estimator and demonstrates lower sensitivity to sensor data errors compared to alternative SLAM algorithms. However, conventional algorithms are primarily concerned with stationary landmarks, which might prevent localization in dynamic environments. This paper proposes an Euclidean-based method for handling moving landmarks, calculating and estimating distances between the robot and each moving landmark, and addressing sensor measurement conflicts. The approach is evaluated through simulations in MATLAB and comparing results with the conventional UKF-SLAM algorithm. We also introduce a dataset for filter-based algorithms in dynamic environments, which can be used as a benchmark for evaluating of future algorithms. The outcomes of the proposed algorithm underscore that this simple yet effective approach mitigates the disruptive impact of moving landmarks, as evidenced by a thorough examination involving parameters such as the number of moving and stationary landmarks, waypoints, and computational efficiency. We also evaluated our algorithms in a realistic simulation of a real-world mapping task. This approach allowed us to assess our methods in practical conditions and gain insights for future enhancements. Our algorithm surpassed the performance of all competing methods in the evaluation, showcasing its ability to excel in real-world mapping scenarios.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figure

A review: Simultaneous localization and mapping algorithms

Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) involves creating an environmental map based on sensor data, while concurrently keeping track of the robot’s current position. Efficient and accurate SLAM is crucial for any mobile robot to perform robust navigation. It is also the keystone for higher-level tasks such as path planning and autonomous navigation. The past two decades have seen rapid and exciting progress in solving the SLAM problem together with many compelling implementations of SLAM methods. In this paper, we will review the two common families of SLAM algorithms: Kalman filter with its variations and particle filters. This article complements other surveys in this ?eld by reviewing the representative algorithms and the state-of-the-art in each family. It clearly identifies the inherent relationship between the state estimation via the KF versus PF techniques, all of which are derivations of Bayes rule

Experimental Investigation of Algorithms for Simultaneous Localization and Mapping

This paper describes a mobile robot system designed for simultaneous localization and mapping. The architecture of a robotic mobile system based on the mini-tractor chassis is considered. The existing and modern methods and approaches to solving the SLAM problem are described, as well as the results of experimental studies of the work of methods on a mobile robot. A description of the developed robotic system for solving the navigation problem and constructing a route map is given. The issues addressed in this paper include the design, development and experimental testing of the mobile robot. The advantages, disadvantages of the algorithm, as well as the direction of further research are described in this work

Probabilistic Self-Localization and Mapping: An Asynchronous Multirate Approach

"© 2008 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works."[EN] In this paper, we present a set of robust and efficient algorithms with O(N) cost for the solution of the Simultaneous Localization And Mapping (SLAM) problem of a mobile robot. First, we introduce a novel object detection method, which is mainly based on multiple line fitting method for landmark detection with regular constrained angles. Second, a line-based pose estimation method is proposed, based on LeastSquares (LS). This method performs the matching of lines, providing the global pose estimation under assumption of known Data-Association. Finally, we extend the FastSLAM (FActored Solution To SLAM) algorithm for mobile robot self-localisation and mapping by considering the asynchronous sampling of sensors and actuators. In this sense, multi-rate asynchronous holds are used to interface signals with different sampling rates. Moreover, an asynchronous fusion method to predict and update mobile robot pose and map is also presented. In addition to this, FastSLAM 1.0 has been also improved by considering the estimated pose with the LS-approach to re-allocate each particle of the posterior distribution of the robot pose. This approach has a lower computational cost than the original Extended Kalman Filtering (EKF) approach in FastSLAM 2.0. All these methods have been combined in order to perform an efficient and robust self-localization and map building process. Additionally, these methods have been validated with experimental real data, in mobile robot moving on an unknown environment for solving the SLAM problem.This work has been supported by the Spanish Government (MCyT) research project BIA2005-09377-C03-02 and by the Italian Government (MIUR) research project PRIN2005097207.Armesto, L.; Ippoliti, G.; Longhi, S.; Tornero Montserrat, J. (2008). Probabilistic Self-Localization and Mapping: An Asynchronous Multirate Approach. IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine. 15(2):77-88. https://doi.org/10.1109/M-RA.2007.907355S778815