Semantic Exploration and Dense Mapping of Complex Environments using Ground Robot with Panoramic LiDAR-Camera Fusion

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Zhan, Xiaoyang, Zhou, Shixin, Yang, Qianqian, Zhao, Yixuan, Liu, Hao, Ramineni, Srinivas Chowdary, Shimada, Kenji
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Zhan, Xiaoyang
Zhou, Shixin
Yang, Qianqian
Zhao, Yixuan
Liu, Hao
Ramineni, Srinivas Chowdary
Shimada, Kenji
author_facet Zhan, Xiaoyang
Zhou, Shixin
Yang, Qianqian
Zhao, Yixuan
Liu, Hao
Ramineni, Srinivas Chowdary
Shimada, Kenji
contents This paper presents a system for autonomous semantic exploration and dense semantic target mapping of a complex unknown environment using a ground robot equipped with a LiDAR-panoramic camera suite. Existing approaches often struggle to balance collecting high-quality observations from multiple view angles and avoiding unnecessary repetitive traversal. To fill this gap, we propose a complete system combining mapping and planning. We first redefine the task as completing both geometric coverage and semantic viewpoint observation. We then manage semantic and geometric viewpoints separately and propose a novel Priority-driven Decoupled Local Sampler to generate local viewpoint sets. This enables explicit multi-view semantic inspection and voxel coverage without unnecessary repetition. Building on this, we develop a hierarchical planner to ensure efficient global coverage. In addition, we propose a Safe Aggressive Exploration State Machine, which allows aggressive exploration behavior while ensuring the robot's safety. Our system includes a plug-and-play semantic target mapping module that integrates seamlessly with state-of-the-art SLAM algorithms for pointcloud-level dense semantic target mapping. We validate our approach through extensive experiments in both realistic simulations and complex real-world environments. Simulation results show that our planner achieves faster exploration and shorter travel distances while guaranteeing a specified number of multi-view inspections. Real-world experiments further confirm the system's effectiveness in achieving accurate dense semantic object mapping of unstructured environments.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_22880
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Semantic Exploration and Dense Mapping of Complex Environments using Ground Robot with Panoramic LiDAR-Camera Fusion
Zhan, Xiaoyang
Zhou, Shixin
Yang, Qianqian
Zhao, Yixuan
Liu, Hao
Ramineni, Srinivas Chowdary
Shimada, Kenji
Robotics
Artificial Intelligence
This paper presents a system for autonomous semantic exploration and dense semantic target mapping of a complex unknown environment using a ground robot equipped with a LiDAR-panoramic camera suite. Existing approaches often struggle to balance collecting high-quality observations from multiple view angles and avoiding unnecessary repetitive traversal. To fill this gap, we propose a complete system combining mapping and planning. We first redefine the task as completing both geometric coverage and semantic viewpoint observation. We then manage semantic and geometric viewpoints separately and propose a novel Priority-driven Decoupled Local Sampler to generate local viewpoint sets. This enables explicit multi-view semantic inspection and voxel coverage without unnecessary repetition. Building on this, we develop a hierarchical planner to ensure efficient global coverage. In addition, we propose a Safe Aggressive Exploration State Machine, which allows aggressive exploration behavior while ensuring the robot's safety. Our system includes a plug-and-play semantic target mapping module that integrates seamlessly with state-of-the-art SLAM algorithms for pointcloud-level dense semantic target mapping. We validate our approach through extensive experiments in both realistic simulations and complex real-world environments. Simulation results show that our planner achieves faster exploration and shorter travel distances while guaranteeing a specified number of multi-view inspections. Real-world experiments further confirm the system's effectiveness in achieving accurate dense semantic object mapping of unstructured environments.
title Semantic Exploration and Dense Mapping of Complex Environments using Ground Robot with Panoramic LiDAR-Camera Fusion
topic Robotics
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.22880