Factor Graph Based Incremental Smoothing in Inertial Navigation Systems - Robotics Institute Carnegie Mellon University

Factor Graph Based Incremental Smoothing in Inertial Navigation Systems

Vadim Indelman, Stephen Williams, Michael Kaess, and Frank Dellaert
Conference Paper, Proceedings of 15th International Conference on Information Fusion (FUSION '12), pp. 2154 - 2161, July, 2012

Abstract

This paper describes a new approach for information fusion in inertial navigation systems. In contrast to the commonly used filtering techniques, the proposed approach is based on a non-linear optimization for processing incoming measurements from the inertial measurement unit (IMU) and any other available sensors into a navigation solution. A factor graph formulation is introduced that allows multi-rate, asynchronous, and possibly delayed measurements to be incorporated in a natural way. This method, based on a recently developed incremental smoother, automatically determines the number of states to recompute at each step, effectively acting as an adaptive fixed-lag smoother. This yields an efficient and general framework for information fusion, providing nearly-optimal state estimates. In particular, incoming IMU measurements can be processed in real time regardless to the size of the graph. The proposed method is demonstrated in a simulated environment using IMU, GPS and stereo vision measurements and compared to the optimal solution obtained by a full non-linear batch optimization and to a conventional extended Kalman filter (EKF).

BibTeX

@conference{Indelman-2012-7553,
author = {Vadim Indelman and Stephen Williams and Michael Kaess and Frank Dellaert},
title = {Factor Graph Based Incremental Smoothing in Inertial Navigation Systems},
booktitle = {Proceedings of 15th International Conference on Information Fusion (FUSION '12)},
year = {2012},
month = {July},
pages = {2154 - 2161},
keywords = {Navigation, information fusion, factor graph, filtering},
}