Continuous Self-Calibration for Lifelong Autonomy

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A fundamental requirement in any multisensor robotic system is precision calibration. To ensure optimal performance, the sensors need to be properly calibrated, both internally and relative to one another. Incorrect calibration results in erroneous data fusion and, in the worst case, may lead to potentially dangerous manipulation or navigation failures. Today, robotic manipulation and navigation techniques usually depend on offline calibration procedures, typically carried out by a human operator. The calibration process, which is often tedious and time consuming, must be repeated whenever sensors are repositioned or substantial mechanical stresses are applied. This need for calibration severely limits our ability to build 'power-on-and-go' robots that are able to function independently for long durations. The proposed research will develop robotic systems that are able to update and maintain their own calibration during normal operation, without the use of external references, equipment, or assistance. This will involve (i) establishing a unified mathematical (Bayesian) framework for joint calibration of a variety of heterogenous sensors (including inertial, odometric, encoder, visual, LIDAR, and RGB-Depth modalities), (ii) devising methods to determine, within this framework, exactly which system parameters can be calibrated, given motion and other constraints, (iii) designing platform trajectories to calibrate the sensors accurately and rapidly, and (iv) demonstrating successful automatic calibration of multiple sensors on-board a range of autonomous platforms, over periods of days to weeks. An important aspect of the work is the rigorous assessment and verification of the performance of the calibration algorithms on deployed field robots operating in unstructured and dynamic environments (e.g., planetary rovers traversing rugged terrain). The research will support the training of highly qualified personnel who are familiar with state-of-the-art sensor systems, their operation and their calibration. In turn, the work will contribute substantially to developing Canadian expertise in the growing robotics field.