HexVIO: Towards All-Day Stereo-Inertial Tracking Through Commodity DSPs

TL;DR

HexVIO improves stereo-inertial tracking efficiency by running the visual frontend on a smartphone's Hexagon DSP, reducing power use by 67% or boosting throughput by 86% compared to CPU-only execution. The system maintains real-time 30 fps tracking for over 18 hours on a single device at just 0.83 W.

Why It Matters

This enables extended, low-power spatial tracking in mobile and wearable devices, crucial for XR, robotics, and drones where battery life and thermal management are limiting factors. Leveraging existing hardware like DSPs avoids costly redesigns and makes all-day tracking feasible on consumer-grade devices.

Key Findings

• Offloading the visual frontend to the Hexagon DSP reduces power consumption by 67% compared to CPU-only execution.
• The system achieves an 86% increase in processing throughput while maintaining real-time 30 fps performance.
• HexVIO sustains continuous 30 fps tracking for approximately 18 hours on a single device at 0.83 W of power.