# MSCKF\_VIO


The `MSCKF_VIO` package is a stereo version of MSCKF. The software takes in synchronized stereo images and IMU messages and generates real-time 6DOF pose estimation of the IMU frame.

The software is tested on Ubuntu 16.04 with ROS Kinetic.

Video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXSB8Bze0cY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXSB8Bze0cY)  
Paper Draft: [https://arxiv.org/abs/1712.00036](https://arxiv.org/abs/1712.00036)

## License

Penn Software License. See LICENSE.txt for further details.

## Dependencies

Most of the dependencies are standard including `Eigen`, `OpenCV`, and `Boost`. The standard shipment from Ubuntu 16.04 and ROS Kinetic works fine. One special requirement is `suitesparse`, which can be installed through,

```
sudo apt-get install libsuitesparse-dev
```

## Compling
The software is a standard catkin package. Make sure the package is on `ROS_PACKAGE_PATH` after cloning the package to your workspace. And the normal procedure for compling a catkin package will work.

```
cd your_work_space
catkin_make --pkg msckf_vio --cmake-args -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
```

## Calibration

An accurate calibration is crucial for successfully running the software. To get the best performance of the software, the stereo cameras and IMU should be hardware synchronized. [Kalibr](https://github.com/ethz-asl/kalibr) can be used to calibrate the transformantion between the stereo cameras and IMU. The yaml file generated by Kalibr can be directly used in this software with slight modifications. See `example_calib.yaml` in the `config` folder for the modifications.

## Example Usage

There are launch files prepared for the EuRoC and fast flight dataset separately. Upon launching the `msckf_vio_*.launch`, two ros nodes are created:
* `image_processor` takes the stereo images to detect and track features.
* `vio` takes the feature measurements and tightly fuses them with the IMU messages to estimate pose.

### `image_processor` node

**Subscribed Topics**

`imu` (`sensor_msgs/Imu`)

IMU messages is used for compensating rotation in feature tracking, and 2-point RANSAC.

`camx_image` (`sensor_msgs/Image`)

Synchronized stereo images.

**Published Topics**

`features` (`msckf_vio/CameraMeasurement`)

Records the feature measurements on the current stereo image pair.

`tracking_info` (`msckf_vio/TrackingInfo`)

Records the feature tracking status for debugging purpose.

`debug_stereo_img` (`sensor_msgs::Image`)

Draw current features on the stereo images for debugging purpose. Note that this debugging image is only generated upon subscription.

### `vio` node

**Subscribed Topics**

`imu` (`sensor_msgs/Imu`)

IMU measurements.

`features` (`msckf_vio/CameraMeasurement`)

Stereo feature measurements from the `image_processor` node.

**Published Topics**

`odom` (`nav_msgs/Odometry`)

Odometry of the IMU frame including a proper covariance.

`feature_point_cloud` (`sensor_msgs/PointCloud2`)

Shows current features in the map which may be used for estimation.