Polarimetric Enhancements to Electro-Optical Aided Navigation Techniques

Focusing on enhancing navigation for small unmanned systems in GPS-denied indoor environments, this thesis explores innovative algorithms that integrate inertial sensors with polarimetric techniques. It addresses the challenge of low feature density on smooth surfaces by employing a micro-facet polarimetric model and a Kalman filter for surface structure and orientation determination. The research includes the development of graphical user interfaces for material parameter estimation and a physical polarimeter, achieving a notable improvement in attitude estimation by up to 50%.