Localization from visual landmarks on a free-flying robot
Brian Coltin, Jesse Fusco, Zack Moratto, Oleg Alexandrov, Robert Nakamura
Abstract
We present the localization approach for Astrobee, a new free-flying robot designed to navigate autonomously on the International Space Station (ISS). Astrobee will accommodate a variety of payloads and enable guest scientists to run experiments in zero-g, as well as assist astronauts and ground controllers. Astrobee will replace the SPHERES robots which currently operate on the ISS, whose use of fixed ultrasonic beacons for localization limits them to work in a 2 meter cube. Astrobee localizes with monocular vision and an IMU, without any environmental modifications. Visual features detected on a pre-built map, optical flow information, and IMU readings are all integrated into an extended Kalman filter (EKF) to estimate the robot pose. We introduce several modifications to the filter to make it more robust to noise, and extensively evaluate the localization algorithm.
BibTeX
@inproceedings{iros2016_localizationfrom,
title = {Localization from visual landmarks on a free-flying robot},
author = {Brian Coltin and Jesse Fusco and Zack Moratto and Oleg Alexandrov and Robert Nakamura},
booktitle = {IROS 2016},
year = {2016}
}