Visual-inertial navigation, mapping and localization: A scalable real-time causal approach

We present a model to estimate motion from monocular visual and inertial measurements. We analyze the model and characterize the conditions under which its state is observable, and its parameters are identifiable. These include the unknown gravity vector, and the unknown transformation between the camera coordinate frame and the inertial unit. We show that it is possible to estimate both state and parameters as part of an on-line procedure, but only provided that the motion sequence is “rich enough,” a condition that we characterize explicitly. We then describe an efficient implementation of a filter to estimate the state and parameters of this model, including gravity and camera-to-inertial calibration. It runs in real-time on an embedded platform, and its performance has been tested extensively. We report experiments of continuous operation, without failures, re-initialization, or re-calibration, on paths of length up to 30Km. We also describe an integrated approach to “loop...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2011
• Where: IJRR
• Authors: Eagle Jones, Stefano Soatto
• Keywords: Embedded Platform, Gravity Vector, IJRR 2011, Parameters