A novel spatial pyramid-enhanced indoor visual positioning method

As a key application of Internet of Things (IoT) technology, visual localization plays an important role in everyday life. However, pedestrians in images can obstruct environmental features, negatively impacting the performance of visual localization systems. To address this issue, we propose a Spatial Pyramid-Enhanced MixVPR visual localization method (SPE-VL) that aims to enhance image feature descriptions through multi-scale spatial information, thereby mitigating the effects of pedestrian occlusion on localization accuracy. The SPE-VL method is divided into two main phases: sensor-based matching range constraint and image feature extraction and matching. In the matching range constraint phase, we propose a direction decision method based on a machine learning classifier that utilizes smartphone sensor data to restrict the direction of image matching, reducing the likelihood of mismatches. In the feature extraction and matching phase, we propose a Transformer-based feature cross-enhancement method that leverages local features and spatial contextual information to enhance features, improving both image retrieval accuracy and localization precision. Experimental results indicate that the SPE-VL method demonstrates higher localization accuracy and robustness compared to existing state-of-the-art methods, providing new insights and solutions for the application of visual localization in complex environments.