On the Use of the Observability Gramian for Partially Observed Robotic Path Planning Problems

TL;DR

This paper critically examines the use of the observability Gramian as a metric for planning in robotics under observation uncertainty, highlighting potential limitations and inaccuracies.

Contribution

It provides an analysis of the shortcomings of the observability Gramian in robotic path planning and suggests considerations for more effective approaches.

Findings

Observability Gramian may not reliably predict estimation performance.

Certain trajectories based on Gramian optimization can be misleading.

The paper emphasizes the need for alternative metrics or methods.

Abstract

Optimizing measures of the observability Gramian as a surrogate for the estimation performance may provide irrelevant or misleading trajectories for planning under observation uncertainty.