Bluetooth Phased-array Aided Inertial Navigation Using Factor Graphs: Experimental Verification
It provides a low-cost alternative for GNSS-denied navigation in robotics applications like warehouse logistics and drone landings.
The paper experimentally validates a factor graph-based navigation system using Bluetooth phased-array angular measurements, achieving comparable performance to GNSS in denied environments with low-cost hardware.
Phased-array Bluetooth systems have emerged as a low-cost alternative for performing aided inertial navigation in GNSS-denied use cases such as warehouse logistics, drone landings, and autonomous docking. Basing a navigation system off of commercial-off-the-shelf components may reduce the barrier of entry for phased-array radio navigation systems, albeit at the cost of significantly noisier measurements and relatively short feasible range. In this paper, we compare robust estimation strategies for a factor graph optimisation-based estimator using experimental data collected from multirotor drone flight. We evaluate performance in loss-of-GNSS scenarios when aided by Bluetooth angular measurements, as well as range or barometric pressure.