Mar 14, 2026 · cs.ROJ/K move · Enter open · S save
Ali Alridha Abdulkarim, Mikhail Litvinov, Dzmitry Tsetserukou
Intelligent Space Robotics Laboratory, Center for Digital Engineering, Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology
Millimeter-wave radar enables robust perception in visually degraded environments, yet radar-inertial estimation remains prone to drift: sparse body-frame velocity measurements weakly constrain absolute orientation, leaving IMU biases poorly observable over the short horizons of sliding-window estimators. We propose a tightly coupled, hierarchical radar-inertial factor graph that decouples estimation into a high-rate resetting graph and a persistent global graph. The resetting graph fuses IMU preintegration, radar velocities, and adaptive ZUPT to produce smooth, low-latency odometry for real-time control. The persistent graph maintains a full state (poses, velocities, and biases) via keyframe-based geometric mapping and loop closures. Fully observable biases and their exact covariances are continuously injected from the persistent graph as priors into the resetting graph, anchoring the high-rate estimator against integration drift. Extensive evaluations demonstrate high accuracy and drift-reduced estimation at faster than real-time speeds. Code and datasets will be released upon paper acceptance.