• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.260-270
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• 2023

We introduce a novel Visual Inertial Odometry (VIO) algorithm designed to improve the performance of thermal-inertial odometry. Thermal infrared image, though advantageous for feature extraction in low-light conditions, typically suffers from a high noise level and significant information loss during the 8-bit conversion. Our algorithm overcomes these limitations by approximating a 14-bit raw pixel histogram into a Gaussian mixture model. The conversion method effectively emphasizes image regions where texture for visual tracking is abundant while reduces unnecessary background information. We incorporate the robust learning-based feature extraction and matching methods, SuperPoint and SuperGlue, and zero velocity detection module to further reduce the uncertainty of visual odometry. Tested across various datasets, the proposed algorithm shows improved performance compared to other state-of-the-art VIO algorithms, paving the way for robust thermal-inertial odometry.