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x-RIO: Radar Inertial Odometry with Multiple Radar Sensors and Yaw Aiding

Gyroscopy and Navigation volume 12, pages 329–339 (2021)Cite this article

Abstract

A robust and accurate real-time navigation system is crucial for autonomous robotics. In particular, GNSS denied and poor visual conditions are still very challenging as vision based approaches tend to fail in darkness, direct sunlight, fog, or smoke. Therefore, we are taking advantage of inertial data and FMCW radar sensors as both are not affected by such conditions. In this work, we propose a framework, which uses several 4D mmWave radar sensors simultaneously. The extrinsic calibration of each radar sensor is estimated online. Based on a single radar scan, the 3D ego velocity and optionally yaw measurements based on Manhattan world assumptions are fused. An extensive evaluation with real world datasets is presented. We achieve even better accuracies than state of the art stereo Visual Inertial Odometry (VIO) while being able to cope with degraded visual conditions and requiring only very little computational resources.

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Notes

  1. https://github.com/christopherdoer/rio

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Control Systems, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Karlsruhe, Germany

    C. Doer & G. F. Trommer

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  1. C. Doer
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  2. G. F. Trommer
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Correspondence to C. Doer.

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Doer, C., Trommer, G.F. x-RIO: Radar Inertial Odometry with Multiple Radar Sensors and Yaw Aiding. Gyroscopy Navig. 12, 329–339 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1134/S2075108721040039

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/S2075108721040039

Keywords:

  • radar inertial odometry
  • navigation system
  • autonomous robotics