J Math Model Algor (2014) 13:2357

DOI 10.1007/s10852-013-9219-7

Single and Multi Camera Simultaneous Localization

and Mapping Using the Extended Kalman Filter
On the Different Parameterizations for 3D Point Features
Simone Ceriani Daniele Marzorati
Matteo Matteucci Domenico G. Sorrenti

Received: 15 February 2012 / Accepted: 14 February 2013 / Published online: 28 March 2013
Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Abstract Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) has received quite a

lot of attention in the last decades because of its relevance for many applications
centered on a mobile observer, such as service robotics and intelligent transportation
systems. This paper focuses on the use of recursive Bayesian filtering, as implemented by the Extendend Kalman Filter (EKF), to face the Visual SLAM problem,
i.e., when using data from visual sources. In Monocular SLAM, which uses a single
camera as unique source of information, it is not possible to directly estimate
the depth of a feature from a single image. To handle the severely non-normal
distribution representing such uncertainty, inverse parametrizations were developed,
capable to deal with such uncertainty and still relying on Gaussian variables. In the
paper, after an introduction to EKF-SLAM, we provide a review of different inverse
parametrizations, and we introduce a novel proposal, the Framed Inverse Depth
(FID) parametrization, which, in terms of consistency, performs similarly to state

This work has been partially supported by the Italian Ministry of University and Research
(MIUR) through the PRIN 2009 grant ROAMFREE: Robust Odometry Applying
Multi-sensor Fusion to Reduce Estimation Errors.
S. Ceriani M. Matteucci
Politecnico di Milano (DEIB), via Ponzio 34/5, 20133 Milano, Italy
S. Ceriani
e-mail: simone.ceriani@mail.polimi.it
M. Matteucci
e-mail: matteucci@elet.polimi.it
D. Marzorati
InfoSolution S.p.A., via della Burrona 51, 20090 Vimodrone (Mi), Italy
e-mail: d.marzorati@infosolution.it
D. G. Sorrenti (B)
Universit degli Studi di Milano - Bicocca (DISCo),
Building U14, viale Sarca 336, 20126 Milano, Italy
e-mail: domenico.sorrenti@unimib.it