Evaluating Ground Imagery for Long-Standoff, Vision-Based Navigation, Localization and Positioning

In this paper, we evaluated image quality, algorithms and a workflow associated with matching horizons derived from 3D terrain data to ground imagery as a way to visually estimate a geographic position. The evaluation represented a passive, vision-based navigation technique using long-standoff (>1 KM) terrain features and a horizon detection algorithm hosted within an Android-based geospatial application. Our method involved quantitatively grading edge image feature quality based on pixel data between sky and terrain from high to poor. We tested the algorithm and processing to derive a position using images of varied quality, representing fine and gross, and near and far geographic terrain structures. The site chosen for our tests was located near the Organ Mountains in New Mexico to take advantage of largely unobstructed, long-distance features that challenged both image quality and horizon detection. Testing used the Samsung S23 Ultra (S23U) phone’s primary internal camera to acquire the necessary ground images and native compute power. Our evaluation workflow featured both pre-processing and near-real-time processing elements for position estimations. Pre-processing involved building a Geopackage containing geolocated, synthetic horizons extracted from available 3D terrain data of the test area and camera/sensor configuration data. These data were pre-loaded onto the phone to accomplish the live, near-real-time positional determinations matched to the extracted horizons generated from images acquired by the S23U camera. Our results showed that single-image processing, where only one high-quality ground photo was acquired, 75% of solutions were within 100 m of the actual camera position (compared with the internal sensor-based, Exchangeable Image File Format (EXIF) metadata). Single images of fair quality resulted in positional accuracies where only 38% of the solutions were within 100 m of the EXIF. Improvement was realized when four or more images from varying directions collected from a single location resulted in over 90% of positions falling within 100 m of the EXIF.