Vehicle geolocalization based on video synchronization

This paper proposes a novel method for estimating the geospatial localization of a vehicle. I uses as input a georeferenced video sequence recorded by a forward-facing camera attached to the windscreen. The core of the proposed method is an on-line video synchronization which finds out the corresponding frame in the georeferenced video sequence to the one recorded at each time by the camera on a second drive through the same track. Once found the corresponding frame in the georeferenced video sequence, we transfer its geospatial information of this frame. The key advantages of this method are: 1) the increase of the update rate and the geospatial accuracy with regard to a standard low-cost GPS and 2) the ability to localize a vehicle even when a GPS is not available or is not reliable enough, like in certain urban areas. Experimental results for an urban environments are presented, showing an average of relative accuracy of 1.5 meters.