Real-time Multi-Adaptive-Resolution-Surfel 6D LiDAR Odometry using Continuous-time Trajectory Optimization

05/05/2021

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by   Jan Quenzel, et al.

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Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) is an essential capability for autonomous robots, but due to high data rates of 3D LiDARs real-time SLAM is challenging. We propose a real-time method for 6D LiDAR odometry. Our approach combines a continuous-time B-Spline trajectory representation with a Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) formulation to jointly align local multi-resolution surfel maps. Sparse voxel grids and permutohedral lattices ensure fast access to map surfels, and an adaptive resolution selection scheme effectively speeds up registration. A thorough experimental evaluation shows the performance of our approach on two datasets and during real-robot experiments.