POSE ESTIMATION OF A MOVING CAMERA WITH LOW-COST, MULTI-GNSS DEVICES

Abstract

Without additional prior information, the pose of a camera estimated with computer vision techniques is expressed in a local coordinate frame attached to the camera’s initial location. Albeit sufficient in many cases, such an arbitrary representation is not convenient for employment in certain applications and has to be transformed to a coordinate system external to the camera before further use. Assuming a camera that is firmly mounted on a moving platform, this paper describes a method for continuously tracking the pose of that camera in a projected coordinate system. By combining exterior orientation from a known target with incremental pose changes inferred from accurate multi-GNSS positioning, the full 6 DoF pose of the camera is updated with low processing overhead and without requiring the continuous visual tracking of ground control points. Experimental results of applying the proposed method to a moving vehicle and a mobile port crane are reported, demonstrating its efficacy and potential.