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Main Authors: Franchini, Giacomo, Rodríguez-Martínez, David, Martínez-Petersen, Alfonso, Pérez-del-Pulgar, C. J., Chiaberge, Marcello
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.15052
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author Franchini, Giacomo
Rodríguez-Martínez, David
Martínez-Petersen, Alfonso
Pérez-del-Pulgar, C. J.
Chiaberge, Marcello
author_facet Franchini, Giacomo
Rodríguez-Martínez, David
Martínez-Petersen, Alfonso
Pérez-del-Pulgar, C. J.
Chiaberge, Marcello
contents Autonomous robots operating in natural karstic caves face perception and navigation challenges that are qualitatively distinct from those encountered in mines or tunnels: irregular geometry, reflective wet surfaces, near-zero ambient light, and complex branching passages. Yet publicly available datasets targeting this environment remain scarce and offer limited sensing modalities and environmental diversity. We present CAVERS, a multimodal dataset acquired in two structurally distinct rooms of Cueva de la Victoria, Málaga, Spain, comprising 24 sequences totaling approximately 335 GB of recorded data. The sensor suite combines an Intel RealSense D435i RGB-D-I camera, an Optris PI640i near-IR thermal camera, and a Velodyne VLP-16 LiDAR, operated both handheld and mounted on a wheeled rover under full darkness and artificial illumination. For most of the sequences, mm-accurate 6-DoF ground truth pose and velocity at 120 Hz are provided by an Optirack motion capture system installed directly inside the cave. We benchmark seven state-of-the-art SLAM and odometry algorithms spanning visual, visual-inertial, thermal-inertial, and LiDAR-based pipelines, as well as a 3D reconstruction pipeline, demonstrating the dataset's usability. %The dataset and all supplementary material are publicly available at: https://github.com/spaceuma/cavers.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_15052
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle CAVERS: Multimodal SLAM Data from a Natural Karstic Cave with Ground Truth Motion Capture
Franchini, Giacomo
Rodríguez-Martínez, David
Martínez-Petersen, Alfonso
Pérez-del-Pulgar, C. J.
Chiaberge, Marcello
Robotics
Autonomous robots operating in natural karstic caves face perception and navigation challenges that are qualitatively distinct from those encountered in mines or tunnels: irregular geometry, reflective wet surfaces, near-zero ambient light, and complex branching passages. Yet publicly available datasets targeting this environment remain scarce and offer limited sensing modalities and environmental diversity. We present CAVERS, a multimodal dataset acquired in two structurally distinct rooms of Cueva de la Victoria, Málaga, Spain, comprising 24 sequences totaling approximately 335 GB of recorded data. The sensor suite combines an Intel RealSense D435i RGB-D-I camera, an Optris PI640i near-IR thermal camera, and a Velodyne VLP-16 LiDAR, operated both handheld and mounted on a wheeled rover under full darkness and artificial illumination. For most of the sequences, mm-accurate 6-DoF ground truth pose and velocity at 120 Hz are provided by an Optirack motion capture system installed directly inside the cave. We benchmark seven state-of-the-art SLAM and odometry algorithms spanning visual, visual-inertial, thermal-inertial, and LiDAR-based pipelines, as well as a 3D reconstruction pipeline, demonstrating the dataset's usability. %The dataset and all supplementary material are publicly available at: https://github.com/spaceuma/cavers.
title CAVERS: Multimodal SLAM Data from a Natural Karstic Cave with Ground Truth Motion Capture
topic Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.15052