In this video the application of a Visual-Inertial (Camera & IMU) localization algorithm on a Parrot AR.DRONE quadrotor, for enabling real-time GPS-denied autonomous navigation, is presented.

A sensor package for data logging, consisting of a Beaglebone computer, an Intersense Navchip IMU and a Point Grey Chameleon monochrome camera was attached to the AR.DRONE.

The IMU operates at 100Hz while the camera at 7.5Hz. Currently, IMU measurements and camera images are logged on-board and they are processed off-board.

Details

The miniaturization, reduced cost, and increased accuracy of cameras and inertial measurement units (IMU) makes them ideal sensors for determining the 3D position and attitude of vehicles navigating in GPS-denied areas.

In particular, fast and highly dynamic motions can be precisely estimated over short periods of time by fusing rotational velocity and linear acceleration measurements provided by the IMU’s gyroscopes and accelerometers, respectively.

On the other hand, errors caused due to the integration of the bias and noise in the inertial measurements can be significantly reduced by processing observations to point features detected in camera images in what is known as a vision-aided inertial navigation system (V-INS).

In this video, we present the latest demonstration of a V-INS implementation, that has computation complexity linear in the number of features tracked from the camera. The specific implementation is targeted on enabling quadrotors to navigate with high precision in GPS-denied areas.

Relevant Publications

[1] A.I. Mourikis, N. Trawny, S.I. Roumeliotis, A. Johnson, A. Ansar, L. Matthies: “Vision-Aided Inertial Navigation for Spacecraft Entry, Descent, and Landing,” IEEE Transactions on Robotics, 25(2), pp. 264-280, April 2009.

[2] J. A. Hesch, D. G. Kottas, S. L. Bowman and S. I. Roumeliotis "Towards Consistent Vision-aided Inertial Navigation",  10th International Workshop on the Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics 13-15 June 2012, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

[3] D. G. Kottas, J. A. Hesch, S. L. Bowman and S. I. Roumeliotis "On the consistency of Vision-aided Inertial Navigation", 13th International Symposium on Experimental Robotics June 17-20 2012, Quebec City, Canada