Multi-Sensor Integrated Navigation in Urban and Indoor Environments

Abstract

The art of multi-sensor processing, or “sensor-fusion,” is the ability to optimally infer state information from multiple noisy streams of data. One major application area where sensor fusion is commonly used is navigation technology. While global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) can provide centimeter-level location accuracy worldwide, they suffer from signal availability problems in dense urban environment and they hardly work indoors. While several alternative backups have been proposed, so far, no single sensor or technology can provide the desirable precise localization in such environments under reasonable costs and affordable infrastructures. Therefore, to navigate through these complex areas, combining sensors is beneficial. Common sensors used to augment/replace GNSS in complex environments include inertial measurement unit (IMU), range sensors, and vision sensors. This chapter discusses the design and implementation of tightly coupled sensor fusion of GNSS, IMU, and light detection and ranging (LiDAR) measurements to navigate in complex urban and indoor environments.