Monocular Vision Localization Using a Gimbaled Laser Range Sensor

There have been great advances in recent years in the area of indoor navigation. Many of these new navigation systems rely on digital images to aid an inertial navigation estimates. The Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) has been conducting research in this area for a number of years. The image-aiding techniques are centered around tracking stationary features in order to improve inertial navigation estimates. Previous research has used stereo vision systems or terrain constraints with monocular systems to estimate feature locations. While these methods have shown good results, they do have drawbacks. First, as unmanned exploration vehicles become smaller in size the distance available to create a baseline between two cameras decreases resulting in a decrease of distancing accuracy. Second, if using a monocular system, terrain data might not be known in an unexplored environment. This research explores the use of a small gimbaled laser range sensor and monocular camera to estimate feature locations.