Multiple static target position estimate

Question

An aerial vehicle captures images of the ground, using a down facing camera, in order to detect some static ground targets. Using opencv I created a node that detects those targets and converts their position from the image frame to the world frame. Since all targets are on the ground, each sample is a 3D vector (x,y,0). Note: Using robot_localization I also have the attitude and heading of the aerial vehicle.

What's the best approach to estimate the position of the targets from multiple readings?

Is there a package that implements something to this effect? This is basically a problem of noise removal and estimation, so strategies one of the possible strategies is using clustering.

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Originally posted by nvoltex on ROS Answers with karma: 131 on 2016-01-22

Post score: 0

Answer 1

Sounds like a job that could be performed by hector_object_tracker. It allows for tracking objects both with unique or ambiguous IDs. A example of use is this video of autonomous exploration. The robot detects QR codes (unique ID) in the environment as well simulated victims (based on heat, ambiguous). The former are visible as blue markers, the latter as red ones. This is the launch file used.

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Originally posted by Stefan Kohlbrecher with karma: 24361 on 2016-01-22

This answer was ACCEPTED on the original site

Post score: 0

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Original comments

Comment by nvoltex on 2016-01-23:
What I am searching for is more a solution to the position estimation (noise/outlier filtering and estimation to be precise), since I already detect and convert the dected position to the world referencial frame. However hector_object_tracker, doesn't seem to allow access to the filtering side alone

Comment by Stefan Kohlbrecher on 2016-01-23:
It's using EKFs behind the scenes, so it would be up to you to generate appropriate covariance data for your observations (which could be generated also from your robot_localization vehicle pose estimate).

Comment by nvoltex on 2016-01-28:
One of my problems is that I can't seem to understand how to setup the packge properly and there are no tutorials or extra information. Do you know of place where I can read more in depth about that package?