Hardware Requirements

Hardware required for VIO systems

Camera

• Types of Cameras

  • Based on Shutter type

    • Rolling Shutter

    • Global Shutter (Recommended)

  • Based on Trigger I/O

    • Able to operate with external trigger signal (Must for VIO)

      (Note: Generally all the cameras, even the low-cost webcam (VSYNC) has this feature but the trigger pins are hidden inside the board, while there are cameras which have dedicated ports for trigger. )

• Links to some cameras

  • https://www.ptgrey.com/chameleon3-2

  • https://www.ptgrey.com/firefly-mv-03-mp-mono-usb-20-micron-mt9v022

  • https://www.matrix-vision.com/USB2.0-single-board-camera-mvbluefox-mlc.html

IMU

There are lots of IMUs available, even the embedded IMUs can be utilised (eg. We used IMU data from Pixhawk flight controller).

• Trigger Capacities

  If your IMU can generate external trigger, it is the best thing you can have Cheers!

  If not, then you need to set-up external time-sync. This can be done with micro-controller or with software sync.

• Other Important considerations

  • Random Walk (Important)

  • Consistent Rates

    This helps a lot for time-sync between IMU data and camera images.

References

• Visual inertial odometry on budget!!

https://riccardogiubilato.github.io/visual/odometry/2017/12/12/Visual-Inertial-Odometry-On-A-Budget.htmlriccardogiubilato.github.io