# Initialization of Monocular Visual Navigation for Autonomous Agents Using Modified Structure from Small Motion

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.16465 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.16465/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 6 of its 31 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 24 Sep 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 6 of 6)

- [ORB-SLAM: a Versatile and Accurate Monocular SLAM System](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1502.00956/) (2015)
- [ORB-SLAM3: An Accurate Open-Source Library for Visual, Visual-Inertial and Multi-Map SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.11898/) (2020)
- [VINS-Mono: A Robust and Versatile Monocular Visual-Inertial State Estimator](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1708.03852/) (2017)
- [Image Matching across Wide Baselines: From Paper to Practice](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.01587/) (2020)
- [AstroSLAM: Autonomous Monocular Navigation in the Vicinity of a Celestial Small Body -- Theory and Experiments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.00350/) (2022)
- [Using the Softplus Function to Construct Alternative Link Functions in Generalized Linear Models and Beyond](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.14207/) (2021)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Navigation Around Unknown Space Objects Using Visible-Thermal Image Fusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.12203/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We propose a standalone monocular visual Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (vSLAM) initialization pipeline for autonomous space robots. Our method, a state-of-the-art factor graph optimization pipeline, extends Structure from Small Motion (SfSM) to robustly initialize a monocular agent in spacecraft inspection trajectories, addressing visual estimation challenges such as weak-perspective projection and center-pointing motion, which exacerbates the bas-relief ambiguity, dominant planar geometry, which causes motion estimation degeneracies in classical Structure from Motion, and dynamic illumination conditions, which reduce the survivability of visual information. We validate our approach on realistic, simulated satellite inspection image sequences with a tumbling spacecraft and demonstrate the method's effectiveness over existing monocular initialization procedures.