Three-Dimensional Lidar Localization and Mapping with Loop-Closure Detection Based on Dense Depth Information

This paper presents a novel lidar SLAM system for localizing a mobile robot to build a map of the environment. To identify the unknown transform matrix, we design a new scan-matching approach, in which a point cloud segmentation algorithm is additionally integrated. Different from the traditional normal distribution transform algorithm for point cloud registration, our newly proposed one additionally incorporates a ground point remover and a point cloud segmentation method. By employing the point cloud segmentation algorithm to divide the point cloud space into different cells, the newly proposed algorithm can guarantee the continuity and convergence of the cost function. To tackle the recognition difficulties that the camera-based loop-closure detection heavily depends on the environment’s appearance, a depth-completion algorithm is introduced to fuse sensor data to ensure the robustness of the algorithm. Moreover, the bags of binary words (DBoW) are adopted to improve the image-matching quality. Finally, experimental results are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed system.