MOMA: Visual Mobile Marker Odometry

Abstract

In this paper, we present a cooperative visual odometry system based on the detection of mobile markers. To this end, we introduce a simple scheme that realizes visual mobile marker odometry via accurate fixed marker-based camera positioning and we discuss the characteristics of errors inherent to the method compared to classical fixed marker-based navigation and visual odometry. The proposed cooperative scheme has the advantage of not needing any feature or fiducial marker in the environment, which can be used for indoor and underwater applications where it can be harder to extract reliable features. We provide specific configurations of UAV and UGV robots including one that allows continuous movements of the UAV, and a minimal caterpillar-like configuration that works with one UGV alone. Finally, we present a real-world implementation and an evaluation of the proposed configurations.