Inertial Sensed Ego‐motion for 3D Vision

Inertial sensors attached to a camera can provide valuable data about camera pose and movement. In biological vision systems, inertial cues provided by the vestibular system are fused with vision at an early processing stage. In this article we set a framework for the combination of these two sensing modalities. Cameras can be seen as ray direction measuring devices, and in the case of stereo vision, depth along the ray can also be computed. The ego‐motion can be sensed by the inertial sensors, but there are limitations determined by the sensor noise level. Keeping track of the vertical direction is required, so that gravity acceleration can be compensated for, and provides a valuable spatial reference. Results are shown of stereo depth map alignment using the vertical reference. The depth map points are mapped to a vertically aligned world frame of reference. In order to detect the ground plane, a histogram is performed for the different heights. Taking the ground plane as a reference plane for the acquired maps, the fusion of multiple maps reduces to a 2D translation and rotation problem. The dynamic inertial cues can be used as a first approximation for this transformation, allowing a fast depth map registration method. They also provide an image independent location of the image focus of expansion and center of rotation useful during visual based navigation tasks. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.