Season-invariant GNSS-denied visual localization for UAVs

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Kinnari, Jouko, Verdoja, Francesco, Kyrki, Ville
Format: Preprint
Published: 2021
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author Kinnari, Jouko
Verdoja, Francesco
Kyrki, Ville
author_facet Kinnari, Jouko
Verdoja, Francesco
Kyrki, Ville
contents Localization without Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) is a critical functionality in autonomous operations of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Vision-based localization on a known map can be an effective solution, but it is burdened by two main problems: places have different appearance depending on weather and season, and the perspective discrepancy between the UAV camera image and the map make matching hard. In this work, we propose a localization solution relying on matching of UAV camera images to georeferenced orthophotos with a trained convolutional neural network model that is invariant to significant seasonal appearance difference (winter-summer) between the camera image and map. We compare the convergence speed and localization accuracy of our solution to six reference methods. The results show major improvements with respect to reference methods, especially under high seasonal variation. We finally demonstrate the ability of the method to successfully localize a real UAV, showing that the proposed method is robust to perspective changes.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2110_01967
institution arXiv
publishDate 2021
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Season-invariant GNSS-denied visual localization for UAVs
Kinnari, Jouko
Verdoja, Francesco
Kyrki, Ville
Robotics
Localization without Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) is a critical functionality in autonomous operations of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Vision-based localization on a known map can be an effective solution, but it is burdened by two main problems: places have different appearance depending on weather and season, and the perspective discrepancy between the UAV camera image and the map make matching hard. In this work, we propose a localization solution relying on matching of UAV camera images to georeferenced orthophotos with a trained convolutional neural network model that is invariant to significant seasonal appearance difference (winter-summer) between the camera image and map. We compare the convergence speed and localization accuracy of our solution to six reference methods. The results show major improvements with respect to reference methods, especially under high seasonal variation. We finally demonstrate the ability of the method to successfully localize a real UAV, showing that the proposed method is robust to perspective changes.
title Season-invariant GNSS-denied visual localization for UAVs
topic Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2110.01967