Real-time global localization with a pre-built visual landmark database

In this paper, we study how to build a vision-based system for global localization with accuracies within 10cm. for robots and humans operating both indoors and outdoors over wide areas covering many square kilometers. In particular, we study the parameters of building a landmark database rapidly and utilizing that database online for realtime accurate global localization. Although the accuracy of traditional short-term motion based visual odometry systems has improved significantly in recent years, these systems alone cannot solve the drift problem over large areas. Landmark based localization combined with visual odometry is a viable solution to the large scale localization problem. However, a systematic study of the specification and use of such a landmark database has not been undertaken. We propose techniques to build and optimize a landmark database systematically and efficiently using visual odometry. First, topology inference is utilized to find overlapping images in the datab...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2008
• Where: CVPR
• Authors: Zhiwei Zhu, Taragay Oskiper, Supun Samarasekera, Rakesh Kumar, Harpreet S. Sawhney
• Keywords: Computer Vision, CVPR 2008, Global Localization, Landmark Database, Visual Odometry