Visual odometry using the global-appearance of omnidirectional images

This work presents a purely visual topologic odometry system for robot navigation. Our system is based on a Multi-Scale analysis that allows us to estimate the relative displacement between consecutive omnidirectional images. This analysis uses global appearance techniques to describe the scenes. The visual odometry system also makes use of global appearance descriptors of panoramic images to estimate the phase lag between consecutive images and to detect loop closures. When a previous mapped area is recognized during the navigation, the system re-estimates the pose of the scenes included in the map, reducing the error of the path. The algorithm is validated using our own database captured in an indoor environment under real dynamic conditions. The results demonstrate that our system permits estimating the path followed by the robot with accuracy comparing to the real route.