Real-time pose estimation of a dynamic quadruped in GPS-denied environments for 24-hour operation

Abstract

We present a real-time system that enables a highly capable dynamic quadruped robot to maintain an accurate six-degree-of-freedom pose estimate (within a 1.0% error of distance traveled) over long distances traversed through complex, dynamic outdoor terrain, during day and night, in the presence of camera occlusion and saturation, and occasional large external disturbances, such as slips or falls. The system fuses a stereo-camera sensor, inertial measurement unit, leg odometry, and optional intermittent GPS position updates with an extended Kalman filter to ensure robust, low-latency performance. To maintain a six-degree-of-freedom local positioning accuracy alongside the global positioning knowledge, two reference frames are used; a local reference frame and a global reference frame, with the former benefiting obstacle detection and mapping and the latter for operator-specified and autonomous way-point following. Extensive experimental results obtained from multiple field tests are presented to illustrate the performance and robustness of the system over hours of continuous runs and hundreds of kilometers of distance traveled in a wide variety of terrains and conditions.

Keywords

Localization mobile and distributed robotics SLAM sensor fusion sensing and perception computer vision legged robots mechanics design and control field robots field and service robotics visual tracking

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Arun

Huang

Blostein

(1987) Least-squares fitting of two 3-D point sets. IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence 9(5): 698–700.

Astrom

Murray

(2012) Feedback Systems: An Introduction for Scientists and Engineers, vol 2.11b. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.

Bloesch

Hutter

Hoepflinger

. (2013) State estimation for legged robots – consistent fusion of leg kinematics and IMU. Robotics 17: 17–24.

Chilian

Hirschmiller

Gorner

(2011) Multisensor data fusion for robust pose estimation of a six-legged walking robot. In: Proceedings of the IEEE international conference on intelligent robots and systems (IROS), San Francisco, USA, 25–30 September, pp. 2497–2504.

Churchill

Newman

(2014) Experience-based navigation for long-term localisation. International Journal of Robotics Research 32: 1645–1661.

Correll

Barendt

Branicky

(2005) Design considerations for software only implementations of the IEEE 1588 precision time protocol. Conference on IEEE 1588: 11–15.

Gavrilets

(2003) Autonomous aerobatic maneuvering of miniature helicopters: Modeling and control. Technical report, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA.

Goldberg

Maimone

Matthies

(2002) Stereo vision and rover navigation software for planetary exploration. In: IEEE aerospace conference, Big Sky, USA, 9–16 March, pp. 5-2025–2-2036.

Hesch

Mirzaei

Mariottini

. (2010) A laser-aided inertial navigation system (L-INS) for human localization in unknown indoor environments. In: Proceedngs of the IEEE international conference on robotics and automation (ICRA), Anchorage, USA, 3–7 May, pp. 5376–5282.

10.

Howard

(2008) Real-time stereo visual odometry for autonomous ground vehicles. In: Proceedings of the IEEE international conference on intelligent robots and systems (IROS), Nice, France, 22–26 September, pp. 3946–3952.

11.

Jones

Soatto

(2011) Visual-inertial navigation, mapping and localization: A scalable real-time causal approach. International Journal of Robotics Research 30(4): 407–430.

12.

Konolige

Agrawal

Sola

(2011) Large scale visual odometry for rough terrain. Robotics Research. Berlin Heidelberg: Springer.

13.

Latif

Cadena

Neira

(2014) Robust loop closing over time for pose graph SLAM. International Journal of Robotics Research 32: 1611–1626.

14.

Leutenegger

Furgale

Rabaud

. (2013) Keyframe-based visual inertial SLAM using non-linear optimization. In: Proceedings of robotics: science and systems (RSS), Berlin, Germany.

15.

Mourikis

(2013) High-precision, consistent EKF-based visual-inertial odometry. International Journal of Robotics Research 32(6): 690–771.

16.

Susca

Bajracharya

. (2012) Robust multi-sensor, day/night six-DOF pose estimation for a dynamic legged vehicle in GPS-denied environments. In: Proceedings of the IEEE international conference on robotics and automation (ICRA), Saint Paul, USA, 14–18 May, pp. 619–626. IEEE.

17.

Maimone

Cheng

Matthies

(2007) Two years of visual odometry on the Mars exploration rover. Journal of Field Robotics 24: 169–186.

18.

Mourikis

Roumeliotis

(2007) A multi-state constraint Kalman filter for vision-aided inertial navigation. In: Proceedings of the IEEE international conference on robotics and automation (ICRA), Rome, Italy, 10–14 April, pp. 3565–3572. IEEE.

19.

Reinstein

Hoffman

(2013) Dead reckoning in a dynamic quadruped robot based on multimodal proprioceptive sensory information. IEEE Transactions on Robotics 29: 617–624.

20.

Rogers

(2003) Applied mathematics in integrated navigation systems. American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Journal.

21.

Rosten

Drummond

(2006) Machine learning for high-speed corner detection. In: European conference on computer vision, vol 1, Graz, Austria, 7–13 May, pp. 430–443. Springer.

22.

Roumeliotis

Burdick

(2002) Stochastic cloning: A generalized framework for processing relative state measurements. In: Proceedings of the IEEE international conference on robotics and automation (ICRA), Washington, USA, 11–15 May. IEEE.

23.

van der Merwe

(2004) Sigma-point Kalman filters for probabilistic inference in dynamic state-space models. Technical report, OGI School of Science and Engineering at Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, USA.

24.

van der Merwe

Wan

(2004) Sigma-point Kalman filters for non-linear estimation and sensor-fusion: Applications to integrated navigation. In: AIAA guidance, navigation, and control conference and exhibit, Providence, USA, 16–20 August, pp. 5120–5150.

25.

Wooden

Malchano

Blankespoor

. (2010) Autonomous navigation for BigDog. In: Proceedings of the IEEE international conference on robotics and automation (ICRA), Anchorage, USA, 3–7 May, pp. 4736–4741.