Single camera visual odometry based on Random Finite Set Statistics

This paper presents a novel approach based on Random Finite Set (RFS) Statistics for estimating a vehicle´s trajectory in complex urban environments by using a fixed single camera. For this, we extend our earlier works which used Probability Hypothesis Density (PHD) filtering under sensor fusion framework and are among the first to apply this technique to visual odometry in real traffic scenes. We consider features acquired from the camera as a group targets, use the PHD filter to update the overall group state and then estimate the ego-motion vector of the camera. Compared to other approaches, our approach presents a recursive filtering algorithm that provides dynamic estimation of multiple-targets states in the presence of clutter and avoids the association problem. Experimental results show that this method provides good robustness under real traffic scenarios.