Certifiably-Correct Mapping for Safe Navigation Despite Odometry Drift

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Agrawal, Devansh R., Kim, Taekyung, Govindjee, Rajiv, Adeshara, Trushant, Yu, Jiangbo, Ravikumar, Anurekha, Panagou, Dimitra
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Agrawal, Devansh R.
Kim, Taekyung
Govindjee, Rajiv
Adeshara, Trushant
Yu, Jiangbo
Ravikumar, Anurekha
Panagou, Dimitra
author_facet Agrawal, Devansh R.
Kim, Taekyung
Govindjee, Rajiv
Adeshara, Trushant
Yu, Jiangbo
Ravikumar, Anurekha
Panagou, Dimitra
contents Accurate perception, state estimation and mapping are essential for safe robotic navigation as planners and controllers rely on these components for safety-critical decisions. However, existing mapping approaches often assume perfect pose estimates, an unrealistic assumption that can lead to incorrect obstacle maps and therefore collisions. This paper introduces a framework for certifiably-correct mapping that ensures that the obstacle map correctly classifies obstacle-free regions despite the odometry drift in vision-based localization systems (VIO}/SLAM). By deflating the safe region based on the incremental odometry error at each timestep, we ensure that the map remains accurate and reliable locally around the robot, even as the overall odometry error with respect to the inertial frame grows unbounded. Our contributions include two approaches to modify popular obstacle mapping paradigms, (I) Safe Flight Corridors, and (II) Signed Distance Fields. We formally prove the correctness of both methods, and describe how they integrate with existing planning and control modules. Simulations using the Replica dataset highlight the efficacy of our methods compared to state-of-the-art techniques. Real-world experiments with a robotic rover show that, while baseline methods result in collisions with previously mapped obstacles, the proposed framework enables the rover to safely stop before potential collisions.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_18713
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Certifiably-Correct Mapping for Safe Navigation Despite Odometry Drift
Agrawal, Devansh R.
Kim, Taekyung
Govindjee, Rajiv
Adeshara, Trushant
Yu, Jiangbo
Ravikumar, Anurekha
Panagou, Dimitra
Robotics
Systems and Control
Accurate perception, state estimation and mapping are essential for safe robotic navigation as planners and controllers rely on these components for safety-critical decisions. However, existing mapping approaches often assume perfect pose estimates, an unrealistic assumption that can lead to incorrect obstacle maps and therefore collisions. This paper introduces a framework for certifiably-correct mapping that ensures that the obstacle map correctly classifies obstacle-free regions despite the odometry drift in vision-based localization systems (VIO}/SLAM). By deflating the safe region based on the incremental odometry error at each timestep, we ensure that the map remains accurate and reliable locally around the robot, even as the overall odometry error with respect to the inertial frame grows unbounded. Our contributions include two approaches to modify popular obstacle mapping paradigms, (I) Safe Flight Corridors, and (II) Signed Distance Fields. We formally prove the correctness of both methods, and describe how they integrate with existing planning and control modules. Simulations using the Replica dataset highlight the efficacy of our methods compared to state-of-the-art techniques. Real-world experiments with a robotic rover show that, while baseline methods result in collisions with previously mapped obstacles, the proposed framework enables the rover to safely stop before potential collisions.
title Certifiably-Correct Mapping for Safe Navigation Despite Odometry Drift
topic Robotics
Systems and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.18713