Consistent unscented incremental smoothing for multi-robot cooperative target tracking

In this paper, we study the problem of multi-robot cooperative target tracking, where a team of mobile robots cooperatively localize themselves and track (multiple) targets using their onboard sensor measurements as well as target stochastic kinematic information, and which is hence termed cooperati...

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Main Authors: Huang, Guoquan, Kaess, Michael, Leonard, John J
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
Format: Article
Language:en_US
Published: Elsevier 2017
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/111182
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8863-6550
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author Huang, Guoquan
Kaess, Michael
Leonard, John J
author2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
author_facet Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
Huang, Guoquan
Kaess, Michael
Leonard, John J
author_sort Huang, Guoquan
collection MIT
description In this paper, we study the problem of multi-robot cooperative target tracking, where a team of mobile robots cooperatively localize themselves and track (multiple) targets using their onboard sensor measurements as well as target stochastic kinematic information, and which is hence termed cooperative localization and target tracking (CLATT). A novel efficient, consistent, unscented incremental smoothing (UIS) algorithm is introduced. The key idea of the proposed approach is that we employ unscented transform to numerically compute Jacobians so as to attain reduced linearization errors, while further imposing appropriate constraints on the unscented transform to ensure correct observability properties for the incrementally-linearized system. In particular, for the first time we analyze the observability properties of the optimal batch maximum a posteriori (MAP)-based CLATT system, and show that the Fisher information (Hessian) matrix without prior has a nullspace of dimension three, corresponding to the global state information. However, this may not be the case when the Jacobians (and thus the Hessian) are computed canonically by the standard unscented transform, thus negatively impacting the estimation performance. To address this issue, we formulate an observability-constrained unscented transform, and find its closed-from solution as the projection of the canonical unscented Jacobian (i.e., computed by the standard unscented transform) onto an appropriate observable subspace such that the resulting Hessian has a nullspace of correct dimensions. The proposed approach is tested extensively through Monte Carlo simulations as well as a real-world experiment, and is shown to outperform the state-of-the-art incremental smoothing algorithm.
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spelling mit-1721.1/1111822022-09-30T14:42:18Z Consistent unscented incremental smoothing for multi-robot cooperative target tracking Huang, Guoquan Kaess, Michael Leonard, John J Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering Leonard, John J In this paper, we study the problem of multi-robot cooperative target tracking, where a team of mobile robots cooperatively localize themselves and track (multiple) targets using their onboard sensor measurements as well as target stochastic kinematic information, and which is hence termed cooperative localization and target tracking (CLATT). A novel efficient, consistent, unscented incremental smoothing (UIS) algorithm is introduced. The key idea of the proposed approach is that we employ unscented transform to numerically compute Jacobians so as to attain reduced linearization errors, while further imposing appropriate constraints on the unscented transform to ensure correct observability properties for the incrementally-linearized system. In particular, for the first time we analyze the observability properties of the optimal batch maximum a posteriori (MAP)-based CLATT system, and show that the Fisher information (Hessian) matrix without prior has a nullspace of dimension three, corresponding to the global state information. However, this may not be the case when the Jacobians (and thus the Hessian) are computed canonically by the standard unscented transform, thus negatively impacting the estimation performance. To address this issue, we formulate an observability-constrained unscented transform, and find its closed-from solution as the projection of the canonical unscented Jacobian (i.e., computed by the standard unscented transform) onto an appropriate observable subspace such that the resulting Hessian has a nullspace of correct dimensions. The proposed approach is tested extensively through Monte Carlo simulations as well as a real-world experiment, and is shown to outperform the state-of-the-art incremental smoothing algorithm. United States. Office of Naval Research (Grant N00014-12-1-0093) United States. Office of Naval Research (Grant N00014-10-1-0936) United States. Office of Naval Research (Grant N00014-11-1-0688) United States. Office of Naval Research (Grant N00014-12-10020) National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant IIS-1318392) 2017-09-12T18:01:38Z 2017-09-12T18:01:38Z 2014-08 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 0921-8890 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/111182 Huang, Guoquan et al. “Consistent Unscented Incremental Smoothing for Multi-Robot Cooperative Target Tracking.” Robotics and Autonomous Systems 69 (July 2015): 52–67. © 2014 Elsevier B.V. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8863-6550 en_US http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.robot.2014.08.007 Robotics and Autonomous Systems Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ application/pdf Elsevier Other univ. web domain
spellingShingle Huang, Guoquan
Kaess, Michael
Leonard, John J
Consistent unscented incremental smoothing for multi-robot cooperative target tracking
title Consistent unscented incremental smoothing for multi-robot cooperative target tracking
title_full Consistent unscented incremental smoothing for multi-robot cooperative target tracking
title_fullStr Consistent unscented incremental smoothing for multi-robot cooperative target tracking
title_full_unstemmed Consistent unscented incremental smoothing for multi-robot cooperative target tracking
title_short Consistent unscented incremental smoothing for multi-robot cooperative target tracking
title_sort consistent unscented incremental smoothing for multi robot cooperative target tracking
url http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/111182
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8863-6550
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AT kaessmichael consistentunscentedincrementalsmoothingformultirobotcooperativetargettracking
AT leonardjohnj consistentunscentedincrementalsmoothingformultirobotcooperativetargettracking