SuperVINS: A Real-Time Visual-Inertial SLAM Framework for Challenging Imaging Conditions

The traditional visual-inertial SLAM system often struggles with stability under low-light or motion-blur conditions, leading to potential lost of trajectory tracking. High accuracy and robustness are essential for the long-term and stable localization capabilities of SLAM systems. Addressing the challenges of enhancing robustness and accuracy in visual-inertial SLAM, this paper propose SuperVINS, a real-time visual-inertial SLAM framework designed for challenging imaging conditions. In contrast to geometric modeling, deep learning features are capable of fully leveraging the implicit information present in images, which is often not captured by geometric features. Therefore, SuperVINS, developed as an enhancement of VINS-Fusion, integrates the deep learning neural network model SuperPoint for feature point extraction and loop closure detection. At the same time, a deep learning neural network LightGlue model for associating feature points is integrated in front-end feature matching. A feature matching enhancement strategy based on the RANSAC algorithm is proposed. The system is allowed to set different masks and RANSAC thresholds for various environments, thereby balancing computational cost and localization accuracy. Additionally, it allows for flexible training of specific SuperPoint bag of words tailored for loop closure detection in particular environments. The system enables real-time localization and mapping. Experimental validation on the well-known EuRoC dataset demonstrates that SuperVINS is comparable to other visual-inertial SLAM system in accuracy and robustness across the most challenging sequences. This paper analyzes the advantages of SuperVINS in terms of accuracy, real-time performance, and robustness. To facilitate knowledge exchange within the field, we have made the code for this paper publicly available.