MARVO: Marine-Adaptive Radiance-aware Visual Odometry

Abstract

Underwater visual localization remains challenging due to wavelength-dependent attenuation, poor texture, and non-Gaussian sensor noise. We introduce MARVO, a physics-aware, learning-integrated odometry framework that fuses underwater image formation modeling, differentiable matching, and reinforcement-learning optimization. At the front-end, we extend transformer-based feature matcher with a Physics Aware Radiance Adapter that compensates for color channel attenuation and contrast loss, yielding geometrically consistent feature correspondences under turbidity. These semi dense matches are combined with inertial and pressure measurements inside a factor-graph backend, where we formulate a keyframe-based visual-inertial-barometric estimator using GTSAM library. Each keyframe introduces (i) Pre-integrated IMU motion factors, (ii) MARVO-derived visual pose factors, and (iii) barometric depth priors, giving a full-state MAP estimate in real time. Lastly, we introduce a Reinforcement-Learningbased Pose-Graph Optimizer that refines global trajectories beyond local minima of classical least-squares solvers by learning optimal retraction actions on SE(2).