Attentional Landmarks and Active Gaze Control for Visual SLAM

This paper is centered around landmark detection, tracking and matching for visual SLAM (Simultaneous Localization And Mapping) using a monocular vision system with active gaze control. We present a system specialized in creating and maintaining a sparse set of landmarks based on a biologically motivated feature selection strategy. A visual attention system detects salient features which are highly discriminative, ideal candidates for visual landmarks which are easy to redetect. Features are tracked over several frames to determine stable landmarks and to estimate their 3D position in the environment. Matching of current landmarks to database entries enables loop closing. Active gaze control allows us to overcome some of the limitations of using a monocular vision system with a relatively small field of view. It supports (i) the tracking of landmarks which enable a better pose estimation, (ii) the exploration of regions without landmarks to obtain a better distribution of landmarks in ...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2008
• Where: TROB
• Authors: Simone Frintrop, Patric Jensfelt
• Keywords: Active Gaze Control, Monocular Vision, TROB 2008, Visual Landmarks