Terrain Inclination Aided Three Dimensional Localization and Mapping for an Outdoor Mobile Robot

TL;DR

This paper introduces a terrain inclination-assisted 3D localization and mapping method for outdoor robots, combining terrain inclination data with ICP to enhance accuracy and efficiency in environment mapping.

Contribution

It proposes a novel integration of terrain inclination information with ICP for improved outdoor 3D localization and mapping.

Findings

Reduced time consumption in mapping process

Improved localization accuracy

Effective in outdoor environments

Abstract

A new 3D localization and mapping techinque with terrain inclination assistance is proposed in this paper to allow a robot to identify its location and build a global map in an outdoor environment. The Iterative Closest Points (ICP) algorithm and terrain inclination-based localization are combined together to achieve accurate and fast localization and mapping. Inclinations of the terrains the robot navigates are used to achieve local localization during the interval between two laser scans. Using the results of the above localization as the initial condition, the ICP algorithm is then applied to align the overlapped laser scan maps to update the overhanging obstacles for building a global map of the surrounding area. Comprehensive experiments were carried out for the validation of the proposed 3D localization and mapping technique. The experimental results show that the proposed technique could reduce time consumption and improve the accuracy of the performance.