CTE-MLO: Continuous-time and Efficient Multi-LiDAR Odometry with Localizability-aware Point Cloud Sampling

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Shen, Hongming, Wu, Zhenyu, Hui, Yulin, Wang, Wei, Lyu, Qiyang, Deng, Tianchen, Zhu, Yeqing, Tian, Bailing, Wang, Danwei
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Shen, Hongming
Wu, Zhenyu
Hui, Yulin
Wang, Wei
Lyu, Qiyang
Deng, Tianchen
Zhu, Yeqing
Tian, Bailing
Wang, Danwei
author_facet Shen, Hongming
Wu, Zhenyu
Hui, Yulin
Wang, Wei
Lyu, Qiyang
Deng, Tianchen
Zhu, Yeqing
Tian, Bailing
Wang, Danwei
contents In recent years, LiDAR-based localization and mapping methods have achieved significant progress thanks to their reliable and real-time localization capability. Considering single LiDAR odometry often faces hardware failures and degeneracy in practical scenarios, Multi-LiDAR Odometry (MLO), as an emerging technology, is studied to enhance the performance of LiDAR-based localization and mapping systems. However, MLO can suffer from high computational complexity introduced by dense point clouds that are fused from multiple LiDARs, and the continuous-time measurement characteristic is constantly neglected by existing LiDAR odometry. This motivates us to develop a Continuous-Time and Efficient MLO, namely CTE-MLO, which can achieve accurate and real-time estimation using multi-LiDAR measurements through a continuous-time perspective. In this paper, the Gaussian process estimation is naturally combined with the Kalman filter, which enables each LiDAR point in a point stream to query the corresponding continuous-time trajectory using its time instants. A decentralized multi-LiDAR synchronization scheme is also devised to combine points from separate LiDARs into a single point cloud without the primary LiDAR assignment. Moreover, with the aim of improving the real-time performance of MLO without sacrificing robustness, a point cloud sampling strategy is designed with the consideration of localizability. To this end, CTE-MLO integrates synchronization, localizability-aware sampling, continuous-time estimation, and voxel map management within a Kalman filter framework, which can achieve high accuracy and robust continuous-time estimation within only a few linear iterations. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated through various scenarios, including public datasets and real-world applications. The code is available at https://github.com/shenhm516/CTE-MLO to benefit the community.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2408_04901
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle CTE-MLO: Continuous-time and Efficient Multi-LiDAR Odometry with Localizability-aware Point Cloud Sampling
Shen, Hongming
Wu, Zhenyu
Hui, Yulin
Wang, Wei
Lyu, Qiyang
Deng, Tianchen
Zhu, Yeqing
Tian, Bailing
Wang, Danwei
Robotics
In recent years, LiDAR-based localization and mapping methods have achieved significant progress thanks to their reliable and real-time localization capability. Considering single LiDAR odometry often faces hardware failures and degeneracy in practical scenarios, Multi-LiDAR Odometry (MLO), as an emerging technology, is studied to enhance the performance of LiDAR-based localization and mapping systems. However, MLO can suffer from high computational complexity introduced by dense point clouds that are fused from multiple LiDARs, and the continuous-time measurement characteristic is constantly neglected by existing LiDAR odometry. This motivates us to develop a Continuous-Time and Efficient MLO, namely CTE-MLO, which can achieve accurate and real-time estimation using multi-LiDAR measurements through a continuous-time perspective. In this paper, the Gaussian process estimation is naturally combined with the Kalman filter, which enables each LiDAR point in a point stream to query the corresponding continuous-time trajectory using its time instants. A decentralized multi-LiDAR synchronization scheme is also devised to combine points from separate LiDARs into a single point cloud without the primary LiDAR assignment. Moreover, with the aim of improving the real-time performance of MLO without sacrificing robustness, a point cloud sampling strategy is designed with the consideration of localizability. To this end, CTE-MLO integrates synchronization, localizability-aware sampling, continuous-time estimation, and voxel map management within a Kalman filter framework, which can achieve high accuracy and robust continuous-time estimation within only a few linear iterations. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated through various scenarios, including public datasets and real-world applications. The code is available at https://github.com/shenhm516/CTE-MLO to benefit the community.
title CTE-MLO: Continuous-time and Efficient Multi-LiDAR Odometry with Localizability-aware Point Cloud Sampling
topic Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.04901