Observability Analysis of Relative Localization Filters Subjected to Platform Velocity Constraints

Abstract

This research study performs an observability analysis of the relative localization problem related to multirobotic systems. The study considers different constraints related to the availability of relative position measurements and platform velocity measurements. Constraints related to these measurement sources arise due to several reasons such as, sensing limitations especially in aerial platforms, field of view limitations of sensors, and communication bandwidth limitations that may affect the available measurement rate. Although numerous observability studies are reported for localization of multirobot systems, most of these studies do not investigate the problem under constraints related to platform velocity sensing capabilities, and moreover, these do not investigate the global uniqueness of its results. This paper analyzes observability of the relative localization problem in detail for multiple practical scenarios having limited measurement sources and then extends the study with a global uniqueness analysis of the results. The paper establishes theoretical limitations and design recommendations relevant to relative localization frameworks, which are validated through numerical and experimental evaluations using a multirobot system equipped with relative positioning sensors.