An Estimation of Rotational Motion of Unknown Body from Images

Abstract

A method of estimating the rotational vector of a heavenly body using its monocular images is proposed. It deals with the case that the shape of the body is unknown and the motion contains translation as well as rotation. The paper focuses on the equation of observation relating optical flow and variables to estimate. Expressing the equation using the vector seen from a specific moving coordinate system, the number of unknown variables in the equation decreases. The rotational vector of the body is estimated by iteratively minimizing the loss function which is based on the equation of observation mentioned above.