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Batch nonlinear continuous-time trajectory estimation as exactly sparse Gaussian process regression

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Abstract

In this paper, we revisit batch state estimation through the lens of Gaussian process (GP) regression. We consider continuous-discrete estimation problems wherein a trajectory is viewed as a one-dimensional GP, with time as the independent variable. Our continuous-time prior can be defined by any nonlinear, time-varying stochastic differential equation driven by white noise; this allows the possibility of smoothing our trajectory estimates using a variety of vehicle dynamics models (e.g. ‘constant-velocity’). We show that this class of prior results in an inverse kernel matrix (i.e., covariance matrix between all pairs of measurement times) that is exactly sparse (block-tridiagonal) and that this can be exploited to carry out GP regression (and interpolation) very efficiently. When the prior is based on a linear, time-varying stochastic differential equation and the measurement model is also linear, this GP approach is equivalent to classical, discrete-time smoothing (at the measurement times); when a nonlinearity is present, we iterate over the whole trajectory to maximize accuracy. We test the approach experimentally on a simultaneous trajectory estimation and mapping problem using a mobile robot dataset.

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Acknowledgments

Thanks to Dr. Alastair Harrison at Oxford who asked the all-important question: how can the GP estimation approach (Tong et al. 2013) be related to factor graphs? This work was supported by the Canada Research Chair Program, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and the Academy of Finland.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Autonomous Space Robotics Lab, University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies, North York, Canada

    Sean Anderson & Timothy D. Barfoot

  2. Mobile Robotics Group, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Chi Hay Tong

  3. Department of Electrical Engineering and Automation, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland

    Simo Särkkä

Authors
  1. Sean Anderson
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  2. Timothy D. Barfoot
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  3. Chi Hay Tong
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  4. Simo Särkkä
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Correspondence to Sean Anderson.

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This is one of several papers published in Autonomous Robots comprising the “Special Issue on Robotics Science and Systems”.

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Anderson, S., Barfoot, T.D., Tong, C.H. et al. Batch nonlinear continuous-time trajectory estimation as exactly sparse Gaussian process regression. Auton Robot 39, 221–238 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10514-015-9455-y

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