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Daniel McGann

Possible papers associated with this exact author name in Arrow. This page groups case-insensitive exact name matches and is not a full identity disambiguation profile.

3 papers

1 author row

ICRA Conference 2024 Conference Paper

Asynchronous Distributed Smoothing and Mapping via On-Manifold Consensus ADMM

Daniel McGann
Kyle Lassak
Michael Kaess

In this paper we present a fully distributed, asynchronous, and general purpose optimization algorithm for Consensus Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (CSLAM). Multi-robot teams require that agents have timely and accurate solutions to their state as well as the states of the other robots in the team. To optimize this solution we develop a CSLAM back-end based on Consensus ADMM called MESA (Manifold, Edge-based, Separable ADMM). MESA is fully distributed to tolerate failures of individual robots, asynchronous to tolerate communication delays and outages, and general purpose to handle any CSLAM problem formulation. We demonstrate that MESA exhibits superior convergence rates and accuracy compare to existing state-of-the art CSLAM back-end optimizers.

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ICRA Conference 2023 Conference Paper

Robust Incremental Smoothing and Mapping (riSAM)

Daniel McGann
John G. Rogers
Michael Kaess

This paper presents a method for robust optimization for online incremental Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM). Due to the NP-Hardness of data association in the presence of perceptual aliasing, tractable (approximate) approaches to data association will produce erroneous measurements. We require SLAM back-ends that can converge to accurate solutions in the presence of outlier measurements while meeting online efficiency constraints. Existing robust SLAM methods either remain sensitive to outliers, become increasingly sensitive to initialization, or fail to provide online efficiency. We present the robust incremental Smoothing and Mapping (riSAM) algorithm, a robust back-end optimizer for incremental SLAM based on Graduated Non-Convexity. We demonstrate on benchmarking datasets that our algorithm achieves online efficiency, outperforms existing online approaches, and matches or improves the performance of existing offline methods.

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ICRA Conference 2022 Conference Paper

GPS-Denied Global Visual-Inertial Ground Vehicle State Estimation via Image Registration

Yehonathan Litman
Daniel McGann
Eric Dexheimer
Michael Kaess

Robotic systems such as unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) often depend on GPS for navigation in outdoor environments. In GPS-denied environments, one approach to maintain a global state estimate is localizing based on preexisting georeferenced aerial or satellite imagery. However, this is inherently challenged by the significantly differing perspectives between the UGV and reference images. In this paper, we introduce a system for global localization of UGVs in remote, natural environments. We use multi-stereo visual inertial odometry (MSVIO) to provide local tracking. To overcome the challenge of differing viewpoints we use a probabilistic occupancy model to generate synthetic orthographic images from color images taken by the UGV. We then derive global information by scan matching local images to existing reference imagery and then use a pose graph to fuse the measurements to provide uninterrupted global positioning after loss of GPS signal. We show that our system generates visually accurate orthographic images of the environment, provides reliable global measurements, and maintains an accurate global state estimate in GPS-denied conditions.

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