New Visual Odometry Evaluation Frameworks and Models Inspired by Human Heading Perception Studies

PhD Qualifying Examination


Title: "New Visual Odometry Evaluation Frameworks and Models Inspired by
Human Heading Perception Studies"

by

Miss Yue WEI


Abstract:

Visual odometry (VO) refers to the estimation of camera positions over time. As
one basic component of the visual simultaneous localization and mapping (vSLAM)
solutions, VO is a fundamental technology that can be used for various of
modern applications (e.g. robot, augment reality and automatic drive), owning
to the flexibility and economy of modern cameras as compared to other types of
sensors. On the one hand, current VO algorithms and the vSLAM solutions suffer
from several common problems (e.g. environment with too little or too much
texture, noisy condition or occlusion). On the other hand, the visual system of
human beings can identify the self-motion direction (i.e. heading perception)
with excellent robustness and accuracy in very noisy or texture-less
conditions. However, the gap between the current VO technology and the human
capabilities has never been systematically explored. Introducing the framework
of human research to explore the limits of current VO algorithms will not only
assist better localization of the bottlenecks in current algorithms, but also
facilitate the development of brand-new solutions.

This work consists of three parts. In the first part, it begins with an
overview of the development of VO, and then summarizes several limitations of
the current methods for evaluating the performance of VO. In the second part,
it introduces the framework, evaluation methods and some current findings of
human studies on visual heading perception. In the last part, it highlights
current gaps in the field of VO and visual heading perception findings, and
points out future directions in improving the VO technology and vSLAM
solutions.


Date:                   Tuesday, 12 December 2023

Time:                   4:45pm - 6:45pm

Venue:                  Room 4472
                        lifts 25/26

Committee Members:      Prof. Nevin Zhang (Supervisor)
                        Dr. Xiaojuan Ma (Chairperson)
                        Dr. Dan Xu
                        Prof. Richard So (CBE)


**** ALL are Welcome ****