Scalable and Efficient Hierarchical Visual Topological Mapping

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Ramachandran, Saravanabalagi, Horgan, Jonathan, Sistu, Ganesh, McDonald, John
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2024
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author Ramachandran, Saravanabalagi
Horgan, Jonathan
Sistu, Ganesh
McDonald, John
author_facet Ramachandran, Saravanabalagi
Horgan, Jonathan
Sistu, Ganesh
McDonald, John
contents Hierarchical topological representations can significantly reduce search times within mapping and localization algorithms. Although recent research has shown the potential for such approaches, limited consideration has been given to the suitability and comparative performance of different global feature representations within this context. In this work, we evaluate state-of-the-art hand-crafted and learned global descriptors using a hierarchical topological mapping technique on benchmark datasets and present results of a comprehensive evaluation of the impact of the global descriptor used. Although learned descriptors have been incorporated into place recognition methods to improve retrieval accuracy and enhance overall recall, the problem of scalability and efficiency when applied to longer trajectories has not been adequately addressed in a majority of research studies. Based on our empirical analysis of multiple runs, we identify that continuity and distinctiveness are crucial characteristics for an optimal global descriptor that enable efficient and scalable hierarchical mapping, and present a methodology for quantifying and contrasting these characteristics across different global descriptors. Our study demonstrates that the use of global descriptors based on an unsupervised learned Variational Autoencoder (VAE) excels in these characteristics and achieves significantly lower runtime. It runs on a consumer grade desktop, up to 2.3x faster than the second best global descriptor, NetVLAD, and up to 9.5x faster than the hand-crafted descriptor, PHOG, on the longest track evaluated (St Lucia, 17.6 km), without sacrificing overall recall performance.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2404_05023
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Scalable and Efficient Hierarchical Visual Topological Mapping
Ramachandran, Saravanabalagi
Horgan, Jonathan
Sistu, Ganesh
McDonald, John
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Robotics
Hierarchical topological representations can significantly reduce search times within mapping and localization algorithms. Although recent research has shown the potential for such approaches, limited consideration has been given to the suitability and comparative performance of different global feature representations within this context. In this work, we evaluate state-of-the-art hand-crafted and learned global descriptors using a hierarchical topological mapping technique on benchmark datasets and present results of a comprehensive evaluation of the impact of the global descriptor used. Although learned descriptors have been incorporated into place recognition methods to improve retrieval accuracy and enhance overall recall, the problem of scalability and efficiency when applied to longer trajectories has not been adequately addressed in a majority of research studies. Based on our empirical analysis of multiple runs, we identify that continuity and distinctiveness are crucial characteristics for an optimal global descriptor that enable efficient and scalable hierarchical mapping, and present a methodology for quantifying and contrasting these characteristics across different global descriptors. Our study demonstrates that the use of global descriptors based on an unsupervised learned Variational Autoencoder (VAE) excels in these characteristics and achieves significantly lower runtime. It runs on a consumer grade desktop, up to 2.3x faster than the second best global descriptor, NetVLAD, and up to 9.5x faster than the hand-crafted descriptor, PHOG, on the longest track evaluated (St Lucia, 17.6 km), without sacrificing overall recall performance.
title Scalable and Efficient Hierarchical Visual Topological Mapping
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.05023