Event-Based Visual Inertial Odometry Using Smart Features

Abstract

Event-based cameras are a novel type of visual sensor that operate under a unique paradigm, providing asynchronous data on the log-level changes in light intensity for individual pixels. This hardware-level approach to change detection allows these cameras to achieve ultra-wide dynamic range and high temporal resolution. Furthermore, the advent of convolution neural networks (CNNs) has led to state-of-the-art navigation solutions that now rival or even surpass human engineered algorithms. The advantages offered by event cameras and CNNs make them excellent tools for visual odometry. A visual odometry pipeline was implemented with a front-end network for generating event-frames that were fed into a multi-state constraint Kalman filter (MSCKF) back-end, which utilized features and descriptors generated by a CNN. This pipeline was tested on a public dataset and data collected from an ANT Center UAV flight test.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 26, 2020
Accession Number
AD1102920

Entities

People

  • Zachary P Friedel

Organizations

  • Air Force Institute of Technology

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Autonomy
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Sensors

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Aircrafts
  • Computer Programming
  • Computer Vision
  • Detection
  • Detectors
  • Global Positioning Systems
  • Inertial Measurement Units
  • Inertial Navigation
  • Inertial Navigation Systems
  • Jet Propulsion
  • Kalman Filters
  • Machine Learning
  • Measurement
  • Navigation
  • Neural Networks
  • Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Fields of Study

  • Computer science

Readers

  • Computer Vision.
  • Inertial Navigation Systems.
  • Neural Network Machine Learning.

Technology Areas

  • AI & ML
  • AI & ML - Neural Networks