A seasonally invariant deep transform for visual terrain-relative navigation.

Visual terrain-relative navigation (VTRN) is a localization method based on registering a source image taken from a robotic vehicle against a georeferenced target image. With high-resolution imagery databases of Earth and other planets now available, VTRN offers accurate, drift-free navigation for air and space robots even in the absence of external positioning signals. Despite its potential for high accuracy, however, VTRN remains extremely fragile to common and predictable seasonal effects, such as lighting, vegetation changes, and snow cover.