LEADER-FOLLOWER COOPERATIVE LOCALIZATION BASED ON VIO / UWB LOOSE COUPLING FOR AGV GROUP

Abstract. In this paper, we propose a Leader-Follower cooperative localization system for AGV group, which equipped with camera/IMU/UWB anchors as the Leader and IMU/UWB tags as the Follower. Firstly, we introduce the plane constraint with SE(2) into VIO to suppress drift in 2D motion; Secondly, the Follower receives the Leader's VIO pose and calculates the relative pose through the multiple groups of UWB ranging. The algorithm of Leader and Follower is decoupled, which means Leader can choose different self_localization technology to adapt to different scenario, such as LiDAR-Inertial Odometry(LIO), GNSS, etc. In the Follower, a tightly coupled graph optimization based algorithm to fuse UWB ranging and IMU is proposed to estimate its relative pose to the Leader. Lastly, extensive field experiment shows the system can realize omni-directional cooperative positioning in indoor and outdoor environments and the accuracy of collaborative positioning reaches centimeter level.