Structure from Small Baseline Motion with Central Panoramic Cameras

In applications of egomotion estimation, such as real-time vision-based navigation, one must deal with the double-edged sword of small relative motions between images. On one hand, tracking feature points is easier, while on the other, two-view structure-from-motion algorithms are poorly conditioned due to the low signal-to-noise ratio. In this paper, we derive a multi-frame structure from motion algorithm for calibrated central panoramic cameras. Our algorithm avoids the conditioning problem by explicitly incorporating the small baseline assumption in the algorithm´s design. The proposed algorithm is linear, amenable to real-time implementation, and performs well in the small baseline domain for which it is designed.