Wide-Baseline Stereo Experiments in Natural Terrain

We have developed a wide-baseline stereo vision technique for Mars rovers in order to map terrain dis- tant from the rover and allow localization and navi- gation over large areas. This technique uses two im- ages captured by the same camera at different rover positions as a virtual stereo pair. The larger base- line yields better accuracy for distant terrain, but makes stereo matching more difficult. In addition, calibration of the relative camera positions in ad- vance is no longer possible and odometry errors re- sult in uncertainty in the camera positions in prac- tice. Our methodology addresses these problems. We have tested these techniques in several locations con- taining natural terrain (mostly desert). This paper describes the experiments and discusses the successes and failures of the wide-baseline stereo technique.