Visual-Inertial Odometry with Point and Line Features

Abstract

In this paper, we present a tightly-coupled monocular visual-inertial navigation system (VINS) using points and lines with degenerate motion analysis for 3D line triangulation. Based on line segment measurements from images, we propose two sliding window based 3D line triangulation algorithms and compare their performance. Analysis of the proposed algorithms reveals 3 degenerate camera motions that cause triangulation failures. Both geometrical interpretation and Monte-Carlo simulations are provided to verify these degenerate motions which prevent triangulation. In addition, commonly used line representations are compared through a monocular visual SLAM Monte-Carlo simulation. Finally, real-world experiments are conducted to validate the implementation of the proposed VINS system using the “closest point” line representation.