Deep Learning Assisted Inertial Dead Reckoning and Fusion

TL;DR

This paper introduces deep learning methods to improve inertial navigation during periodic motions, enhancing dead-reckoning accuracy for drones and robots, especially during GNSS outages.

Contribution

It presents novel deep learning-assisted inertial fusion techniques tailored for periodic trajectories, improving navigation accuracy over traditional methods.

Findings

Fusion of GNSS and inertial sensors yields better accuracy in periodic motions.

The proposed neural network accurately estimates changes in platform distance.

Hybrid neural-inertial fusion filter benefits from the approach during GNSS availability.

Abstract

The interest in mobile platforms across a variety of applications has increased significantly in recent years. One of the reasons is the ability to achieve accurate navigation by using low-cost sensors. To this end, inertial sensors are fused with global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) signals. GNSS outages during platform operation can result in pure inertial navigation, causing the navigation solution to drift. In such situations, periodic trajectories with dedicated algorithms were suggested to mitigate the drift. With periodic dynamics, inertial deep learning approaches can capture the motion more accurately and provide accurate dead-reckoning for drones and mobile robots. In this paper, we propose approaches to extend deep learning-assisted inertial sensing and fusion capabilities during periodic motion. We begin by demonstrating that fusion between GNSS and inertial sensors in periodic trajectories achieves better accuracy compared to straight-line trajectories. Next, we propose an empowered network architecture to accurately regress the change in distance of the platform. Utilizing this network, we drive a hybrid approach for a neural-inertial fusion filter. Finally, we utilize this approach for situations when GNSS is available and show its benefits. A dataset of 337 minutes of data collected from inertial sensors mounted on a mobile robot and a quadrotor is used to evaluate our approaches.