arXiv subjects

Paulo Ricardo Marques de Araujo

Publications and source records attributed to Paulo Ricardo Marques de Araujo.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Building A Multi-Sensor Platform For Autonomous Driving Research: Challenges and Lessons Learned

This paper reports on the challenges encountered and lessons learned during the development and deployment of a flexible multi-sensor platform for autonomous driving research. It aims to serve as a reference for researchers developing new multi-sensor systems. As the need for reliable, diverse datasets increases, novel environments and sensing configurations are essential to tackle real-world operational challenges. Consequently, many research groups create custom multi-sensory data collection platforms, where fundamental issues, such as mechanical design, sensor calibration, power management, and time synchronization, arise regardless of sensor types. We reflect on these challenges and share key insights to guide future platform designs, enhancing reproducibility and robustness in autonomous vehicle testing. We also summarize the mitigation strategies we adopted, for instance, system-wide time synchronization using GNSS timing and NTP protocols, custom calibration routines for different sensor configurations, and design practices to improve reliability and data integrity during field deployments.

cs.RO↗

arXiv2026

Decentralized UAV Swarms for Ground Target Protection in GPS- and Communication-Denied Environments

The presence of UAVs in military operations has recently increased, also increasing the demand for defense systems against UAV attacks. UAVs can also be used as countermeasures. Most available methods rely on UAV-to-UAV communication and global positioning. However, such resources may not be available in modern warfare scenarios. To address these limitations, we propose a pipeline for ground-target protection against UAV attacks that employs autonomous swarms of UAVs. We assume a communication- and GPS-denied environment in which the UAVs use onboard sensors to track the target and coordinate as a swarm. We developed Kalman filters to estimate the states of unknown targets and the positions of UAVs in the swarm using only relative measurements. Also, our strategy is to encircle the target of interest to maximize coverage. To achieve that, we propose a decentralized swarm encirclement technique that adapts to the target's motion. Our approach was extensively validated using real robots, demonstrating its effectiveness in detecting, encircling, and intercepting hostile UAVs.

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arXiv2026

Constant Time-Delay Leader Following with Neural Networks and Invariant Extended Kalman Filters for Arbitrary Trajectories

This paper proposes a constant time-delay trajectory tracking method for vehicle convoys operating without inter-vehicle communication, a common coordinate system, or global positioning. The method integrates a probabilistic sequence-to-sequence (Seq2Seq) neural network with an invariant extended Kalman filter (IEKF) to warm-start the prediction process, allowing accurate estimation of a leader vehicle's relative trajectory on the SE(2) manifold. A geometric model predictive controller is further incorporated to fully exploit the manifold-based trajectory predictions for improved control performance. The system can handle arbitrary nonlinear trajectories with varying speeds and motion profiles while reducing the need for expert-based domain knowledge for the design of trajectory following systems, even under long trajectory delays. The effectiveness of the method is validated through comparisons with a pure IEKF baseline, learning-based methods, and the ground-truth trajectory in kinematic simulations, as well as in experiments using real robotic vehicles.

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arXiv2026

RouteFormer: A Transformer-Based Routing Framework for Autonomous Vehicles

Autonomous surveillance missions in Internet of Things (IoT) networks often involve solving NP-hard combinatorial optimization problems to ensure efficient resource utilization. To address the limitations of conventional heuristics in dynamic environments, we propose RouteFormer, a novel framework for single-agent routing in graph-based terrains. RouteFormer creates a synergy between the global context awareness of the transformer self-attention mechanism and the adaptive decision-making capabilities of Reinforcement Learning (RL). This architecture allows the system to output optimized routing decisions that adapt to complex task dependencies and resource availability without requiring labeled training datasets. We evaluated RouteFormer on varying graph sizes designed to resemble realistic reconnaissance missions. The results indicate that our model effectively handles the complexity of missions requiring multiple action profiles, outperforming baseline approaches, in terms of both time and distance. Specifically, RouteFormer achieved 10\% and 7\% reduction in distance compared to the solutions obtained from well-established solvers like Concorde and Lin-Kernighan-Helsgaun-3 (LKH-3). This improvement was achieved by effectively incorporating mission-specific constraints that traditional solvers overlook. The proposed framework serves as a modular, scalable pipeline for diverse autonomous scheduling and routing tasks.

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arXiv2025

Look to Locate: Vision-Based Multisensory Navigation with 3-D Digital Maps for GNSS-Challenged Environments

In Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS)-denied environments such as indoor parking structures or dense urban canyons, achieving accurate and robust vehicle positioning remains a significant challenge. This paper proposes a cost-effective, vision-based multi-sensor navigation system that integrates monocular depth estimation, semantic filtering, and visual map registration (VMR) with 3-D digital maps. Extensive testing in real-world indoor and outdoor driving scenarios demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed system, achieving sub-meter accuracy of 92% indoors and more than 80% outdoors, with consistent horizontal positioning and heading average root mean-square errors of approximately 0.98 m and 1.25 °, respectively. Compared to the baselines examined, the proposed solution significantly reduced drift and improved robustness under various conditions, achieving positioning accuracy improvements of approximately 88% on average. This work highlights the potential of cost-effective monocular vision systems combined with 3D maps for scalable, GNSS-independent navigation in land vehicles.

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arXiv2025

The NavINST Dataset for Multi-Sensor Autonomous Navigation

The NavINST Laboratory has developed a comprehensive multisensory dataset from various road-test trajectories in urban environments, featuring diverse lighting conditions, including indoor garage scenarios with dense 3D maps. This dataset includes multiple commercial-grade IMUs and a high-end tactical-grade IMU. Additionally, it contains a wide array of perception-based sensors, such as a solid-state LiDAR - making it one of the first datasets to do so - a mechanical LiDAR, four electronically scanning RADARs, a monocular camera, and two stereo cameras. The dataset also includes forward speed measurements derived from the vehicle's odometer, along with accurately post-processed high-end GNSS/IMU data, providing precise ground truth positioning and navigation information. The NavINST dataset is designed to support advanced research in high-precision positioning, navigation, mapping, computer vision, and multisensory fusion. It offers rich, multi-sensor data ideal for developing and validating robust algorithms for autonomous vehicles. Finally, it is fully integrated with the ROS, ensuring ease of use and accessibility for the research community. The complete dataset and development tools are available at https://navinst.github.io.

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