Porting A Visual Inertial SLAM Algorithm To Android Devices

Abstract

Simultaneous Localization and Mapping aims to identify the current position of an agent and to map his surroundings at the same time. Visual inertial SLAM algorithms use input from visual and motion sensors for this task. Since modern smartphones are equipped with both needed sensors, using VI-SLAM applications becomes feasible, with Augmented Reality being one of the most promising application areas. Android, having the largest market share of all mobile operating systems, is of special interest as the target platform. For iOS there already exists a high-quality open source implementation for VI-SLAM: The framework VINS-Mobile. In this work we discuss what steps are necessary for porting it to the Android operating system. We provide a practical guide to the main challenge: The correct calibration of device specific parameters for any Android smartphone. We present our results using the Samsung Galaxy S7 and show further improvement possibilities.