Single cluster PHD SLAM: Application to autonomous underwater vehicles using stereo vision

Abstract

This paper considers the application of feature-based simultaneous localisation and mapping (SLAM) using a random finite sets (RFS) framework for an autonomous underwater vehicle. SLAM allows for reduction in localisation error by tracking features which provide a fixed external reference. The SLAM problem is addressed here using a single-cluster probability hypothesis density (PHD) filter. The filter uses a particle approximation for the vehicle position with a conditional Gaussian mixture PHD for the feature map. Map features are selected as unique point features generated from a stereo camera on-board the vehicle. We demonstrate the improvement in localisation applying the algorithm to a dataset obtained in an indoor test tank.