Temporal decoupling in image-based localization at scale

A computing apparatus comprising:

• at least one processor;
• and
• a memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, configure the apparatus to:
• perform data collection at a plurality of different service locations, to which a fleet of mobile robots is deployable, to generate collected data;
• divide the collected data into a plurality of blocks of consecutive portions of the collected data;
• generate a first image-based localization model for a first service location of the plurality of different service locations, using the collected data;
• generate a second image-based localization model for a second service location of the plurality of different service locations, using the collected data;
• deploy the first image-based localization model to a first mobile robot of the fleet of mobile robots, the first mobile robot being deployed at the first service location of the plurality of different service locations, the first mobile robot to use the first image-based localization model to navigate the first service location;
• deploy a second image-based localization to a second mobile robot of the fleet of mobile robots, the second mobile robot being deployed at a second service location of the plurality of different service locations, the second mobile robot to use the second image-based localization model to navigate the second service location, wherein:
• the collected data comprises image data, and dividing the collected data comprises dividing the image data into equally-sized blocks of consecutive images;
• generating the first image-based localization model comprises performing training, development, and testing of the first image-based localization model using different ones of the equally-sized blocks of consecutive images;
• the instructions further configure the apparatus to shuffle the different ones of the equally-sized blocks of consecutive images before allocating the different ones of the equally-sized blocks of consecutive images to each of the training, the development, and the testing of the image-based localization model;
• and
• at least one of the first mobile robot and the second mobile robot executes a localization service module that uses the respective image-based localization model to serve image-based localization responses to localization requests;
• at the first mobile robot, performing a reboot operation;
• and
• responsive to the reboot operation and at the first mobile robot, automatically checking remote storage to determine that a new image-based localization model has been generated and stored at the remote storage.