Circular Laser/Camera-Based Attitude and Altitude Estimation: Minimal and Robust Solutions

This paper proposes a basic structured light system for pose estimation. It consists of a circular laser pattern and a camera rigidly attached to the laser source. We develop a geometric modeling that allows to efficiently estimate the pose at scale of the system, relative to a reference plane onto which the pattern is projected. Three different robust estimation strategies, including two minimal solutions, are also presented with this geometric formulation. Synthetic and real experiments are performed for a complete evaluation, both quantitatively and qualitatively, according to different scenarios and environments. We also show that the system can be embedded for UAV experiments.