Topic
Odometry
About: Odometry is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 4548 publications have been published within this topic receiving 91867 citations.
Papers published on a yearly basis
Papers
TL;DR: In this article, a robust and versatile monocular visual-inertial state estimator is presented, which is the minimum sensor suite (in size, weight, and power) for the metric six degrees of freedom (DOF) state estimation.
Abstract: One camera and one low-cost inertial measurement unit (IMU) form a monocular visual-inertial system (VINS), which is the minimum sensor suite (in size, weight, and power) for the metric six degrees-of-freedom (DOF) state estimation. In this paper, we present VINS-Mono: a robust and versatile monocular visual-inertial state estimator. Our approach starts with a robust procedure for estimator initialization. A tightly coupled, nonlinear optimization-based method is used to obtain highly accurate visual-inertial odometry by fusing preintegrated IMU measurements and feature observations. A loop detection module, in combination with our tightly coupled formulation, enables relocalization with minimum computation. We additionally perform 4-DOF pose graph optimization to enforce the global consistency. Furthermore, the proposed system can reuse a map by saving and loading it in an efficient way. The current and previous maps can be merged together by the global pose graph optimization. We validate the performance of our system on public datasets and real-world experiments and compare against other state-of-the-art algorithms. We also perform an onboard closed-loop autonomous flight on the microaerial-vehicle platform and port the algorithm to an iOS-based demonstration. We highlight that the proposed work is a reliable, complete, and versatile system that is applicable for different applications that require high accuracy in localization. We open source our implementations for both PCs ( https://github.com/HKUST-Aerial-Robotics/VINS-Mono ) and iOS mobile devices ( https://github.com/HKUST-Aerial-Robotics/VINS-Mobile ).
4,053 citations
12 Jul 2014
TL;DR: The method achieves both low-drift and low-computational complexity without the need for high accuracy ranging or inertial measurements and can achieve accuracy at the level of state of the art offline batch methods.
Abstract: We propose a real-time method for odometry and mapping using range measurements from a 2-axis lidar moving in 6-DOF. The problem is hard because the range measurements are received at different times, and errors in motion estimation can cause mis-registration of the resulting point cloud. To date, coherent 3D maps can be built by off-line batch methods, often using loop closure to correct for drift over time. Our method achieves both low-drift and low-computational complexity without the need for high accuracy ranging or inertial measurements. The key idea in obtaining this level of performance is the division of the complex problem of simultaneous localization and mapping, which seeks to optimize a large number of variables simultaneously, by two algorithms. One algorithm performs odometry at a high frequency but low fidelity to estimate velocity of the lidar. Another algorithm runs at a frequency of an order of magnitude lower for fine matching and registration of the point cloud. Combination of the two algorithms allows the method to map in real-time. The method has been evaluated by a large set of experiments as well as on the KITTI odometry benchmark. The results indicate that the method can achieve accuracy at the level of state of the art offline batch methods.
3,130 citations
TL;DR: Direct Sparse Odometry (DSO) as mentioned in this paper combines a fully direct probabilistic model with consistent, joint optimization of all model parameters, including geometry represented as inverse depth in a reference frame and camera motion.
Abstract: Direct Sparse Odometry (DSO) is a visual odometry method based on a novel, highly accurate sparse and direct structure and motion formulation. It combines a fully direct probabilistic model (minimizing a photometric error) with consistent, joint optimization of all model parameters, including geometry-represented as inverse depth in a reference frame-and camera motion. This is achieved in real time by omitting the smoothness prior used in other direct methods and instead sampling pixels evenly throughout the images. Since our method does not depend on keypoint detectors or descriptors, it can naturally sample pixels from across all image regions that have intensity gradient, including edges or smooth intensity variations on essentially featureless walls. The proposed model integrates a full photometric calibration, accounting for exposure time, lens vignetting, and non-linear response functions. We thoroughly evaluate our method on three different datasets comprising several hours of video. The experiments show that the presented approach significantly outperforms state-of-the-art direct and indirect methods in a variety of real-world settings, both in terms of tracking accuracy and robustness.
2,718 citations
29 Sep 2014
TL;DR: A semi-direct monocular visual odometry algorithm that is precise, robust, and faster than current state-of-the-art methods and applied to micro-aerial-vehicle state-estimation in GPS-denied environments is proposed.
Abstract: We propose a semi-direct monocular visual odometry algorithm that is precise, robust, and faster than current state-of-the-art methods. The semi-direct approach eliminates the need of costly feature extraction and robust matching techniques for motion estimation. Our algorithm operates directly on pixel intensities, which results in subpixel precision at high frame-rates. A probabilistic mapping method that explicitly models outlier measurements is used to estimate 3D points, which results in fewer outliers and more reliable points. Precise and high frame-rate motion estimation brings increased robustness in scenes of little, repetitive, and high-frequency texture. The algorithm is applied to micro-aerial-vehicle state-estimation in GPS-denied environments and runs at 55 frames per second on the onboard embedded computer and at more than 300 frames per second on a consumer laptop. We call our approach SVO (Semi-direct Visual Odometry) and release our implementation as open-source software.
2,452 citations
1 Oct 2018
TL;DR: A lightweight and ground-optimized lidar odometry and mapping method, LeGO-LOAM, for realtime six degree-of-freedom pose estimation with ground vehicles and integrated into a SLAM framework to eliminate the pose estimation error caused by drift is integrated.
Abstract: We propose a lightweight and ground-optimized lidar odometry and mapping method, LeGO-LOAM, for realtime six degree-of-freedom pose estimation with ground vehicles. LeGO-LOAM is lightweight, as it can achieve realtime pose estimation on a low-power embedded system. LeGO-LOAM is ground-optimized, as it leverages the presence of a ground plane in its segmentation and optimization steps. We first apply point cloud segmentation to filter out noise, and feature extraction to obtain distinctive planar and edge features. A two-step Levenberg-Marquardt optimization method then uses the planar and edge features to solve different components of the six degree-of-freedom transformation across consecutive scans. We compare the performance of LeGO-LOAM with a state-of-the-art method, LOAM, using datasets gathered from variable-terrain environments with ground vehicles, and show that LeGO-LOAM achieves similar or better accuracy with reduced computational expense. We also integrate LeGO-LOAM into a SLAM framework to eliminate the pose estimation error caused by drift, which is tested using the KITTI dataset.
1,996 citations
Related Topics (5)
Performance Metrics
| Year | Papers |
|---|---|
| 2026 | 2 |
| 2025 | 219 |
| 2024 | 402 |
| 2023 | 509 |
| 2022 | 825 |
| 2021 | 479 |