Maximum Likelihood Fusion Model

Abstract

In the absence of a global frame of reference, the ability to fuse data collected by multiple mobile agents that operate in separate coordinate systems is critical for enabling autonomy in multi-agent navigation and perception systems. Of particular interest is the ability to fuse rigid body metric environment models in order to construct a global model from the data collected by each agent. This thesis presents a data fusion approach for combining Gaussian metric models of an environment constructed by multiple agents that operate outside of a global reference frame. Common landmarks are combined using a nonlinear least squares approximation, which yields an exact solution under the assumption of isotropic covariance. Rigid body transform parameters and common landmarks are found using a hypergraph registration approach. The approach demonstrates a robustness to outliers in registration by incorporating unit quaternions to reject outliers on a unit sphere. The performance of the approach is evaluated using experimental benchmark datasets collected in natural and semi-structured environments with camera and laser sensors.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Aug 09, 2014
Accession Number
ADA617040

Entities

People

  • Brandon M. Jones

Organizations

  • Cornell University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Autonomy
  • C4I
  • Sensors
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Algorithms
  • Autonomous Navigation
  • Autonomous Systems
  • Computational Science
  • Coordinate Systems
  • Data Fusion
  • Electrical Engineering
  • Estimators
  • Jet Propulsion
  • Kalman Filters
  • Linear Programming
  • Mathematical Models
  • Research Facilities
  • Robot Navigation
  • Robotics
  • Robots
  • Signal Processing

Readers

  • Agent-Based Social Robotics and Mobile-Assisted Learning in Virtual Environments.
  • Approximation Theory.
  • Distributed Systems and Data Platform Development

Technology Areas

  • Directed Energy