CMSG Cross-Media Semantic-Graph Feature Matching Algorithm for Autonomous Vehicle Relocalization

Relocalization is the basis of map-based localization algorithms. Camera and LiDAR map-based methods are pervasive since their robustness under different scenarios. Generally, mapping and localization using the same sensor have better accuracy since matching features between the same type of data is easier. However, due to the camera's lack of 3D information and the high cost of LiDAR, cross-media methods are developing, which combined live image data and Lidar map. Although matching features between different media is challenging, we believe cross-media is the tendency for AV relocalization since its low cost and accuracy can be comparable to the same-sensor-based methods. In this paper, we propose CMSG, a novel cross-media algorithm for AV relocalization tasks. Semantic features are utilized for better interpretation the correlation between point clouds and image features. What's more, abstracted semantic graph nodes are introduced, and a graph network architecture is integrated to better extract the similarity of semantic features. Validation experiments are conducted on the KITTI odometry dataset. Our results show that CMSG can have comparable or even better accuracy compared to current single-sensor-based methods at a speed of 25 FPS on NVIDIA 1080 Ti GPU.