An Enhanced Adaptable Factor Graph for Simultaneous Localization and Calibration in GNSS/IMU/Odometer Integration

The integration of global navigation satellite system (GNSS), inertial measurement unit (IMU) and odometer has been widely utilized in vehicular localization. Due to the advantage in accessing accurate state estimation, factor graph is commonly employed to achieve the integration of vehicular sensors. However, the fusion performance of traditional factor graph reduces when dealing with asynchronous and abnormal measurements, yielding compromised estimation results for localization and calibration. In this article, an enhanced adaptable factor graph for simultaneous localization and calibration (SLAC) in GNSS/IMU/odometer integration is proposed. First, a novel factor graph framework for GNSS/IMU/odometer integration is designed. In view of the asynchronism among sensors, the variable nodes in factor graph are built according to odometer measurement. IMU pre-integration is then used to establish the relationship between asynchronous GNSS position and corresponding variable nodes to form residuals. To properly deal with the coupling noise in the proposed model, the expectation maximum (EM) algorithm is utilized to estimate the noise parameters based on the proposed model. Simulations and field tests are done to validate the proposed method. It shows that the proposed method has better estimation accuracy for localization and calibration compared with traditional methods. Meanwhile, the computational load of the proposed method is discussed.