Low-cost wheeled robot-borne laser scanning system for indoor and outdoor 3D mapping application

Abstract

Aiming to accomplish automatic and real-time three-dimensional mapping in both indoor and outdoor scenes, a low-cost wheeled robot-borne laser scanning system is proposed in this paper. The system includes a laser scanner, an inertial measurement unit, a modified turtlebot3 two-wheel differential chassis and etc. To achieve a globally consistent map, the system performs global trajectory optimization after detecting the loop closure. Experiments are undertaken in two typical indoor/outdoor scenes that is an underground car park and a road environment in the campus of Wuhan University. The point clouds acquired by the proposed system are quantitatively evaluated by comparing the derived point clouds with the ground truth data collected by a RIEGL VZ 400 laser scanner. The results present an accuracy of 90% points below 0.1 meter error in the tested scene, showing that its applicability and potential in indoor and mapping applications.