[Submitted on 14 Oct 2026]
Title:Navigation by Skylight Polarization via Rayleigh Model Optimization on a Road Vehicle
View a PDF of the paper titled Navigation by Skylight Polarization via Rayleigh Model Optimization on a Road Vehicle, by Ben Potter and 4 other authors
View PDF HTML (experimental)
Abstract:Reliable absolute heading estimation is critical for road-vehicle navigation, particularly when magnetic, inertial, or GNSS-based references are degraded. This paper presents a skylight polarization navigation method that estimates vehicle heading by globally optimizing a Rayleigh sky model against measurements from a division-of-focal-plane polarimetric camera. The proposed framework combines a pinhole camera model, a single-scattering Rayleigh polarization model, and a solar position algorithm to synthesize the expected full image angle of polarization distribution for candidate vehicle states. A degree of polarization weighted root mean square error objective function compares measured and simulated polarization patterns, allowing the estimator to use all available sky information while attenuating low confidence pixels caused by clouds, buildings, foliage, and other depolarizing occlusions. Experimental evaluation is performed using three urban road vehicle trajectories collected with a roof mounted polarimetric camera and a high precision dual-antenna GNSS/INS reference system. Results show sub-degree RMS yaw error across all trajectories, ranging from $0.718^{\circ}$ to $0.889^{\circ}$. Compared with representative feature-based and model-based polarization navigation methods, the proposed approach reduces RMS heading error by up to 87% and demonstrates improved robustness to partial sky occlusion.
Subjects:
Robotics (cs.RO); Systems and Control (eess.SY)
ACM classes: I.2.9
Cite as: arXiv:2610.20797 [cs.RO]
(or arXiv:2610.20797v1 [cs.RO] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2610.20797
arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)
Submission history
From: Ben Potter [view email] [v1] Wed, 14 Oct 2026 18:41:52 UTC (7,661 KB)
Full-text links:
Access Paper:
View a PDF of the paper titled Navigation by Skylight Polarization via Rayleigh Model Optimization on a Road Vehicle, by Ben Potter and 4 other authors
View PDF
HTML (experimental)
TeX Source
view license
Additional Features
Audio Summary
Current browse context:
cs.RO
new | recent | 2026-10
Change to browse by:
cs cs.SY eess eess.SY
References & Citations
NASA ADS
Google Scholar
Semantic Scholar
Loading...
Data provided by:
Bibliographic Tools
Bibliographic and Citation Tools
Bibliographic Explorer Toggle
Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?)
Connected Papers Toggle
Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?)
Litmaps Toggle
Litmaps (What is Litmaps?)
scite.ai Toggle
scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?)
Code, Data, Media
Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article
alphaXiv Toggle
alphaXiv (What is alphaXiv?)
Links to Code Toggle
CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers (What is CatalyzeX?)
DagsHub Toggle
DagsHub (What is DagsHub?)
GotitPub Toggle
Gotit.pub (What is GotitPub?)
Huggingface Toggle
Hugging Face (What is Huggingface?)
ScienceCast Toggle
ScienceCast (What is ScienceCast?)
Demos
Demos
Replicate Toggle
Replicate (What is Replicate?)
Spaces Toggle
Hugging Face Spaces (What is Spaces?)
Spaces Toggle
TXYZ.AI (What is TXYZ.AI?)
Related Papers
Recommenders and Search Tools
Link to Influence Flower
Influence Flower (What are Influence Flowers?)
Core recommender toggle
CORE Recommender (What is CORE?)
Author
Venue
Institution
Topic
About arXivLabs
arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators
arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website.
Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them.
Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs.
Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)