On the Observability of Mobile Vehicle Localization

In this paper, we consider the problem of localizing a mobile vehicle moving in an unstructured environment, based on triangulationmeasurements derived from processed optical information. The problem is shown to be intrinsically nonlinear, in the sense that thelinear approximation of the system has different structural properties than the original model. In particular, linearized approximationsare non–observable, while results obtained from differential–geometric nonlinear system theory prove the possibility of reconstructingthe position and orientation of the vehicle and the position of the obstacles in the environment from optical information.