GroundGazer: An optical reference system for planar localization with millimeter accuracy at low cost

Highly accurate indoor localization systems with absolute mm positioning accuracy are currently expensive. They include laser trackers, total stations, and motion capture systems relying on multiple high-end cameras. In this work, we introduce a high-accuracy, planar indoor localization system named GroundGazer (GG) for autonomous mobile robots (AMRs). GG estimates the AMR's planar position with mm and its heading with sub-degree accuracy. The system requires only a monocular (fisheye) camera, a chessboard floor, and an optional laser diode. Our system is simple and low-cost due to the chessboard floor, robust, scalable to multiple robots, and extendable to 3D position and orientation estimation.