Modeling errors in small baseline stereo for SLAM

In the past few years, there has been significant advancement in localization and mapping using stereo cameras. Despite the recent successes, reliably generating an accurate geometric map of a large indoor area using stereo vision still poses significant challenges due to the accuracy and reliability of depth information especially with small baselines. Most stereo vision based applications presented to date have used medium to large baseline stereo cameras with Gaussian error models. Here we make an attempt to analyze the significance of errors in small baseline (usually <0.1m) stereo cameras and the validity of the Gaussian assumption used in the implementation of Kalman Filter based SLAM algorithms. Sensor errors are analyzed through experimentations carried out in the form of a robotic mapping. Then we show that SLAM solutions based on the Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) could become inconsistent due to the nature of the observation models used.