A Compact Visual-Odometry Sensor for UGVs

This is a proposal to design a compact visual odometry sensor that can be mounted on unmanned ground vehicles. Visual odometry (VO) is a technique that estimates the ego-motion from images perceived by moving cameras. A self-contained visual odometry sensor would provide several significant benefits to unmanned ground vehicles, including: 1) providing position information to platforms that do not have encoders or other odometry sensors; 2) providing position information in GPS-denied environments; and 3) providing additional position information to supplement existing odometry sensors and mitigate their errors. The use of our odometry sensor will greatly increase the ability of an unmanned ground vehicle to operate autonomously as well as providing additional situation awareness to the vehicle operator. Our system will be self-contained, require no field calibration and operate under a variety of field conditions.