Posterior representation with a multi‐modal likelihood using the gaussian sum filter for localization in a known map

A Gaussian sum filter (GSF) with component extended Kalman filters (EKF) is proposed as an approach to localizing an autonomous vehicle in an urban environment with limited GPS availability. The GSF uses vehicle‐relative vision‐based measurements of known map features coupled with inertial navigation solutions to accomplish localization in the absence of GPS. The vision‐based measurements have multimodal measurement likelihood functions that are well represented as weighted sums of Gaussian densities. The GSF is used because of its ability to represent the posterior distribution of the vehicle pose with better efficiency (fewer terms, less computational complexity) than a corresponding bootstrap particle filter with various numbers of particles because of the interaction with measurement hypothesis tests. The expectation‐maximization algorithm is used off line to determine the representational efficiency of the particle filter in terms of an effective number of Gaussian densities. In comparison, the GSF, which uses an iterative condensation procedure after each iteration of the filter to maintain real‐time capabilities, is shown through a series of in‐depth empirical studies to more accurately maintain a representation of the posterior distribution than the particle filter using 37 min of recorded data from Cornell University's autonomous vehicle driven in an urban environment, including a 32 min GPS blackout. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Vision-aided Estimation of Attitude,Velocity, and Inertial Measurement Bias for UAV Stabilization

This paper studies vision-aided inertial navigation of small-scale unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in GPS-denied environments. The objectives of the navigation system are to firstly online estimate and compensate the unknown inertial measurement biases, secondly provide drift-free velocity and attitude estimates which are crucial for UAV stabilization control, and thirdly give relatively accurate position estimation such that the UAV is able to perform at least a short-term navigation when the GPS signal is not available. For the vision system, we do not presume maps or landmarks of the environment. The vision system should be able to work robustly even given low-resolution images (e.g., 160 ×120 pixels) of near homogeneous visual features. To achieve these objectives, we propose a novel homography-based vision-aided navigation system that adopts four common sensors: a low-cost inertial measurement unit, a downward-looking monocular camera, a barometer, and a compass. The measurements of the sensors are fused by an extended Kalman filter. Based on both analytical and numerical observability analyses of the navigation system, we theoretically verify that the proposed navigation system is able to achieve the navigation objectives. We also show comprehensive simulation and real flight experimental results to verify the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed navigation system.     

Real-Time Implementation of GPS Aided Low-Cost Strapdown Inertial Navigation System

This work details the study, development, and experimental implementation of GPS aided strapdown inertial navigation system (INS) using commercial off-the-shelf low-cost inertial measurement unit (IMU). The data provided by the inertial navigation mechanization is fused with GPS measurements using loosely-coupled linear Kalman filter implemented with the aid of MPC555 microcontroller. The accuracy of the estimation when utilizing a low-cost inertial navigation system (INS) is limited by the accuracy of the sensors used and the mathematical modeling of INS and the aiding sensors’ errors. Therefore, the IMU data is fused with the GPS data to increase the accuracy of the integrated GPS/IMU system. The equations required for the local geographic frame mechanization are derived. The direction cosine matrix approach is selected to compute orientation angles and the unified mathematical framework is chosen for position/velocity algorithm computations. This selection resulted in significant reduction in mechanization errors. It is shown that the constructed GPS/IMU system is successfully implemented with an accurate and reliable performance.     

Estimating Vehicle State by GPS/IMU Fusion with Vehicle Dynamics

In this paper, a low-cost navigation system with high integrity and reliability is proposed. A high-integrity estimation filter is proposed to obtain a high-accuracy state estimate. The filter utilizes a vehicle velocity constraint measurement to enhance the accuracy of the estimate. Two estimation filters, the extended Kalman filter (EKF) and the extended information filter (EIF), are designed and compared to obtain the estimate of the vehicle state. An instrumentation system that consists of a microcontroller, GPS receiver, IMU, velocity encoder, and Zigbee transceiver is used. The microcontroller provides a vehicle navigation solution at 50 Hz by fusing the measurements of the IMU and GPS receiver using the proposed filter design. Extensive experimental tests are conducted to verify the accuracy of the proposed algorithm. These results are processed with and without the velocity constraints. The estimation accuracy improvement with the addition of the velocity constraints is shown. A more than 16 % reduction in the computational time is demonstrated when using the EIF in comparison to the EKF approach.     

Bearing-only visual SLAM for small unmanned aerial vehicles in GPS-denied environments

This paper presents a hierarchical simultaneous localization and mapping(SLAM) system for a small unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV) using the output of an inertial measurement unit(IMU) and the bearing-only observations from an onboard monocular camera.A homography based approach is used to calculate the motion of the vehicle in 6 degrees of freedom by image feature match.This visual measurement is fused with the inertial outputs by an indirect extended Kalman filter(EKF) for attitude and velocity estimation.Then,another EKF is employed to estimate the position of the vehicle and the locations of the features in the map.Both simulations and experiments are carried out to test the performance of the proposed system.The result of the comparison with the referential global positioning system/inertial navigation system(GPS/INS) navigation indicates that the proposed SLAM can provide reliable and stable state estimation for small UAVs in GPS-denied environments.     

Approximate nonlinear filtering and its application in navigation

In this paper, we introduce for the first time particle filtering for an exponential family of densities. We prove that under certain conditions the approximated conditional density of the state converges to the true conditional density. In the realistic setting where the conditional density does not lie in an exponential family but stays close to it, we show that under certain assumptions the error of the estimate given by an approximate nonlinear filter (which we call the projection particle filter), is bounded. We use projection particle filtering in state estimation for a combination of inertial navigation system (INS) and global positioning system (GPS), referred to as integrated INS/GPS. We illustrate via numerical experiments that projection particle filtering outperforms regular particle filtering in navigation performance, and extended Kalman filter as well when satellite loss-of-lock occurs.     

Tightly-coupled stereo vision-aided inertial navigation using feature-based motion sensors

A tightly-coupled stereo vision-aided inertial navigation system is proposed in this work, as a synergistic incorporation of vision with other sensors. In order to avoid loss of information possibly resulting by visual preprocessing, a set of feature-based motion sensors and an inertial measurement unit are directly fused together to estimate the vehicle state. Two alternative feature-based observation models are considered within the proposed fusion architecture. The first model uses the trifocal tensor to propagate feature points by homography, so as to express geometric constraints among three consecutive scenes. The second one is derived by using a rigid body motion model applied to three-dimensional (3D) reconstructed feature points. A kinematic model accounts for the vehicle motion, and a Sigma-Point Kalman filter is used to achieve a robust state estimation in the presence of non-linearities. The proposed formulation is derived for a general platform-independent 3D problem, and it is tested and demonstrated with a real dynamic indoor data-set alongside of a simulation experiment. Results show improved estimates than in the case of a classical visual odometry approach and of a loosely-coupled stereo vision-aided inertial navigation system, even in GPS (Global Positioning System)-denied conditions and when magnetometer measurements are not reliable.     

The integration of strap-down INS and GPS based on adaptive error damping

The concept and results of integration of a strap-down inertial navigation system (INS) based on low-accuracy inertial sensors and the global positioning system (GPS) have been presented in this paper. This system is aimed for the purposes of navigation, automatic control, and remote tracking of land vehicles. The integration is made by the implementation of an extended Kalman filter (EKF) scheme for both the initial alignment and navigation phases. Traditional integration schemes (centralized and cascaded) are dominantly based on the usage of high-accuracy inertial sensors. The idea behind the suggested algorithm is to use low-accuracy inertial sensors and the GPS as the main source of navigation information, while the acceptable accuracy of INS is achieved by the proper damping of INS errors. The main advantage of integration consists in the availability of reliable navigation parameters during the intervals of absence of GPS data. The influence of INS error damping coefficients is different depending on the fact whether the moving object is maneuvering or is moving with a constant velocity at that time. It is proposed that INS error damping gain coefficients generally should take higher values always when GPS data are absent, while at the same time their values in the error model (EKF prediction phase) can be additionally adapted according to the actual values of vehicle acceleration. The analysis of integrated navigation system performances is made experimentally. The data are acquired along the real land vehicle’s trajectory while the intervals of absence of GPS data are introduced artificially on the parts characterized both by maneuver and by constant velocity.     

Multiconfiguration Kalman filter design for high-performance GPS navigation

This paper describes the design, implementation, and performance of a real-time multiconfiguration Kalman filter for high-performance Navstar global positioning system (GPS) navigation. The design provides extreme flexibility in order to operate with a wide variety of host sensors. It configures automatically (four filter configurations) based upon the host vehicle requirements and sensor availability, in order to process GPS measurements and provide the best estimate of the navigation states. Two new techniques, namely an unaided dead-reckoning Kalman filter implementation and an automatic inertial platform tilt estimation control scheme, are developed to improve the navigation accuracy, especially for high-dynamics applications. Performance results are presented to demonstrate the advantages of these techniques.     

Vision-Aided Inertial Navigation for Spacecraft Entry, Descent, and Landing

In this paper, we present the vision-aided inertial navigation (VISINAV) algorithm that enables precision planetary landing. The vision front-end of the VISINAV system extracts 2-D-to-3-D correspondences between descent images and a surface map (mapped landmarks), as well as 2-D-to-2-D feature tracks through a sequence of descent images (opportunistic features). An extended Kalman filter (EKF) tightly integrates both types of visual feature observations with measurements from an inertial measurement unit. The filter computes accurate estimates of the lander's terrain-relative position, attitude, and velocity, in a resource-adaptive and hence real-time capable fashion. In addition to the technical analysis of the algorithm, the paper presents validation results from a sounding-rocket test flight, showing estimation errors of only 0.16 m/s for velocity and 6.4 m for position at touchdown. These results vastly improve current state of the art for terminal descent navigation without visual updates, and meet the requirements of future planetary exploration missions.     

Terrain‐based vehicle orientation estimation combining vision and inertial measurements

A novel method for estimating vehicle roll, pitch, and yaw using machine vision and inertial sensors is presented that is based on matching images captured from an on‐vehicle camera to a rendered representation of the surrounding terrain obtained from a three‐dimensional (3D) terrain map. U.S. Geographical Survey Digital Elevation Maps were used to create a 3D topology map of the geography surrounding the vehicle, and it is assumed in this work that large segments of the surrounding terrain are visible, particularly the horizon lines. The horizon lines seen in the captured video from the vehicle are compared to the horizon lines obtained from a rendered geography, allowing absolute comparisons between rendered and actual scene in roll, pitch, and yaw. A kinematic Kalman filter modeling an inertial navigation system then uses the scene matching to generate filtered estimates of orientation. Numerical simulations verify the performance of the Kalman filter. Experiments using an instrumented vehicle operating at the test track of the Pennsylvania Transportation Institute were performed to check the validity of the method. When compared to estimates from a global positioning system/inertial measurement unit (IMU) system, the roll, pitch, and yaw estimates from vision/IMU Kalman filter show an agreement with a (2σ) bound of 0.5, 0.26, and 0.8 deg, respectively. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

基于INS/GPS/COMPASS的AUV组合式导航定位算法

导航定位问题是自主式水下机器人研究(AUV)的主要内容之一,本文针对一种开架式AUV设计了一种采用间接反馈校正的捷联惯性导航与GPS、罗盘相组合的导航方案,其中采用卡尔曼滤波器接收两套导航子系统对同一导航参数输出值的差值,经过滤波计算估计出各误差量。仿真实验的结果表明,SINS/GPS/COMPASS组合导航对SINS误差随时间不断加大的现象起到了很好的抑制作用,能够满足AUV定位精度的要求。     

A New Approach to Estimate True Position of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in an INS/GPS Integration System in GPS Spoofing Attack Conditions

This paper presents a new approach to estimate the true position of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in the conditions of spoofing attacks on global positioning system (GPS) receivers. This approach consists of two phases, the spoofing detection phase which is accomplished by hypothesis test and the trajectory estimation phase which is carried out by applying the adapted particle filters to the integrated inertial navigation system (INS) and GPS. Due to nonlinearity and unfavorable impacts of spoofing signals on GPS receivers, deviation in position calculation is modeled as a cumulative uniform error. This paper also presents a procedure of applying adapted particle swarm optimization filter (PSOF) to the INS/GPS integration system as an estimator to compensate spoofing attacks. Due to memory based nature of PSOF and benefits of each particle’s experiences, application of PSOF algorithm in the INS/GPS integration system leads to more precise positioning compared with general particle filter (PF) and adaptive unscented particle filer (AUPF) in the GPS spoofing attack scenarios. Simulation results show that the adapted PSOF algorithm is more reliable and accurate in estimating the true position of UAV in the condition of spoofing attacks. The validation of the proposed method is done by root mean square error (RMSE) test.     

神经网络在MEMS-IMU/GPS组合导航中的应用研究

针对基于MEMS传感器组成的INS/GPS组合中GPS信号缺失的情况下,系统误差瞬时增大,滤波迅速退化无法继续工作的问题,本文提出利用神经网络辅助INS/GPS导航系统以解决这一问题的方法.该方法首先建立系统模型,用组合导航的输入作为网络模型的输入,通过网络训练得到输出需要参数,结合卡尔曼滤波用于组合导航以继续使导航系统工作,仿真结果表明该方法可行和有效性的.     

自适应模糊粒子滤波在组合导航中的应用

常用的卡尔曼滤波不能解决组合导航系统中的非线性问题,为了进一步提高组合导航系统定位性能,基于粒子滤波和模糊逻辑提出自适应模糊粒子滤波方法.该方法减小了对系统动态及工作环境的依赖,提高了对载体状态的估计精度.并且解决了组合导航系统中卫星信号被遮挡的情况下进行状态估计的问题.通过利用GPS与INS组合导航系统数学仿真证明了方法的可行性、及对组合导航系统的定位精度和鲁棒性的提升,是对于目前常用的组合导航算法的拓展和完善.有很好的应用价值.     

A Kalman Filter-Based Algorithm for IMU-Camera Calibration: Observability Analysis and Performance Evaluation

Vision-aided inertial navigation systems (V-INSs) canprovide precise state estimates for the 3-D motion of a vehicle when no external references (e.g., GPS) are available. This is achieved bycombining inertial measurements from an inertial measurement unit (IMU) with visual observations from a camera under the assumption that the rigid transformation between the two sensors is known. Errors in the IMU-camera extrinsic calibration process cause biases that reduce the estimation accuracy and can even lead to divergence of any estimator processing the measurements from both sensors. In this paper, we present an extended Kalman filter for precisely determining the unknown transformation between a camera and an IMU. Contrary to previous approaches, we explicitly account for the time correlation of the IMU measurements and provide a figure of merit (covariance) for the estimated transformation. The proposed method does not require any special hardware (such as spin table or 3-D laser scanner) except a calibration target. Furthermore, we employ the observability rank criterion based on Lie derivatives and prove that the nonlinear system describing the IMU-camera calibration process is observable. Simulation and experimental results are presented that validate the proposed method and quantify its accuracy.      

Keyframe‐based thermal–inertial odometry

Autonomous navigation of microaerial vehicles in environments that are simultaneously GPS‐denied and visually degraded, and especially in the dark, texture‐less and dust‐ or smoke‐filled settings, is rendered particularly hard. However, a potential solution arises if such aerial robots are equipped with long wave infrared thermal vision systems that are unaffected by darkness and can penetrate many types of obscurants. In response to this fact, this study proposes a keyframe‐based thermal–inertial odometry estimation framework tailored to the exact data and concepts of operation of thermal cameras. The front‐end component of the proposed solution utilizes full radiometric data to establish reliable correspondences between thermal images, as opposed to operating on rescaled data as previous efforts have presented. In parallel, taking advantage of a keyframe‐based optimization back‐end the proposed method is suitable for handling periods of data interruption which are commonly present in thermal cameras, while it also ensures the joint optimization of reprojection errors of 3D landmarks and inertial measurement errors. The developed framework was verified with respect to its resilience, performance, and ability to enable autonomous navigation in an extensive set of experimental studies including multiple field deployments in severely degraded, dark, and obscurants‐filled underground mines.     

基于改进时间差分的视觉/惯性组合导航研究

针对全球导航卫星系统(GNSS,Global Navigation Satellite System)在军事战争、室内和水下等情况下存在因信号缺失导致的全球定位系统（GPS,Global Positioning System）无法使用和惯性导航系统(INS,Inertial Navigation System)状态误差发散过快的问题,提出了一种基于连续帧时间差分视觉辅助导航的方法。为了抑制状态误差的快速发散,提高INS在长航时工作上的性能,分析了机器视觉连续帧间差分法,并对其进行了计算上的改进,设计了一种时间差分视觉/惯性组合系统,并进行了仿真实验和分析。结果与纯INS相比,均方根误差(RMSE,Root Mean Square Error)在北向位置上减少了19.0%,在东向误差上减少了32.1%,表明该方法有效抑制了纯惯性导航速度和位置的误差发散,延长了惯性导航的可用时间。     

Adaptive tuning of a Kalman filter via fuzzy logic for an intelligent AUV navigation system

This paper describes the implementation of an intelligent navigation system, based on the integrated use of the global positioning system (GPS) and several inertial navigation system (INS) sensors, for autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) applications. A simple Kalman filter (SKF) and an extended Kalman filter (EKF) are proposed to be used subsequently to fuse the data from the INS sensors and to integrate them with the GPS data. The paper highlights the use of fuzzy logic techniques to the adaptation of the initial statistical assumption of both the SKF and EKF caused by possible changes in sensor noise characteristics. This adaptive mechanism is considered to be necessary as the SKF and EKF can only maintain their stability and performance when the algorithms contain the true sensor noise characteristics. In addition, fault detection and signal recovery algorithms during the fusion process to enhance the reliability of the navigation systems are also discussed herein. The proposed algorithms are implemented to real experimental data obtained from a series of AUV trials conducted by running the low-cost Hammerhead AUV, developed by the University of Plymouth and Cranfield University.