mmE-Loc: Facilitating Accurate Drone Landing with Ultra-High-Frequency Localization

TL;DR

mmE-Loc is a novel high-precision, low-latency drone landing system that combines mmWave radar with an event camera, leveraging innovative modules for accurate localization and safe landing guidance.

Contribution

This work introduces mmE-Loc, integrating event cameras with mmWave radar and novel modules for improved drone localization accuracy and latency in landing scenarios.

Findings

Significantly outperforms state-of-the-art methods in accuracy.

Achieves lower latency in drone localization.

Demonstrates effectiveness in real-world landing scenarios.

Abstract

For precise, efficient, and safe drone landings, ground platforms should real-time, accurately locate descending drones and guide them to designated spots. While mmWave sensing combined with cameras improves localization accuracy, lower sampling frequency of traditional frame cameras compared to mmWave radar creates bottlenecks in system throughput. In this work, we upgrade traditional frame camera with event camera, a novel sensor that harmonizes in sampling frequency with mmWave radar within ground platform setup, and introduce mmE-Loc, a high-precision, low-latency ground localization system designed for precise drone landings. To fully exploit the \textit{temporal consistency} and \textit{spatial complementarity} between these two modalities, we propose two innovative modules: \textit{(i)} the Consistency-instructed Collaborative Tracking module, which further leverages the drone's physical knowledge of periodic micro-motions and structure for accurate measurements extraction, and \textit{(ii)} the Graph-informed Adaptive Joint Optimization module, which integrates drone motion information for efficient sensor fusion and drone localization. Real-world experiments conducted in landing scenarios with a drone delivery company demonstrate that mmE-Loc significantly outperforms state-of-the-art methods in both accuracy and latency.