Active Illumination for Visual Ego-Motion Estimation in the Dark

Visual Odometry (VO) and Visual SLAM (V-SLAM) systems often struggle in low-light and dark environments due to the lack of robust visual features. In this paper, we propose a novel active illumination framework to enhance the performance of VO and V-SLAM algorithms in these challenging conditions. The developed approach dynamically controls a moving light source to illuminate highly textured areas, thereby improving feature extraction and tracking. Specifically, a detector block, which incorporates a deep learning-based enhancing network, identifies regions with relevant features. Then, a pan-tilt controller is responsible for guiding the light beam toward these areas, so that to provide information-rich images to the ego-motion estimation algorithm. Experimental results on a real robotic platform demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method, showing a reduction in the pose estimation error up to 75% with respect to a traditional fixed lighting technique.

@article{crocetti2025_2502.13708,
  title={ Active Illumination for Visual Ego-Motion Estimation in the Dark },
  author={ Francesco Crocetti and Alberto Dionigi and Raffaele Brilli and Gabriele Costante and Paolo Valigi },
  journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:2502.13708},
  year={ 2025 }
}