Multibeam 3D Underwater SLAM with Probabilistic Registration.
This paper describes a pose-based underwater 3D Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) using a multibeam echosounder to produce high consistency underwater maps. The proposed algorithm compounds swath profiles of the seafloor with dead reckoning localization to build surface patches (i.e., point clouds). An Iterative Closest Point (ICP) with a probabilistic implementation is then used to register the point clouds, taking into account their uncertainties. The registration process is divided in two steps: (1) point-to-point association for coarse registration and (2) point-to-plane association for fine registration. The point clouds of the surfaces to be registered are sub-sampled in order to decrease both the computation time and also the potential of falling into local minima during the registration. In addition, a heuristic is used to decrease the complexity of the association step of the ICP from O(n2) to O(n) . The performance of the SLAM framework is tested using two real world datasets: First, a 2.5D bathymetric dataset obtained with the usual down-looking multibeam sonar configuration, and second, a full 3D underwater dataset acquired with a multibeam sonar mounted on a pan and tilt unit.
Vicorob Research Institute, Universitat de Girona, c/Pic de Peguera 13-Parc Científic i Tecnològic de la UdG-CIRS Building, Girona l17003, Spain. apalomer@eia.udg.edu.
Albert
A
Palomer
Vicorob Research Institute, Universitat de Girona, c/Pic de Peguera 13-Parc Científic i Tecnològic de la UdG-CIRS Building, Girona l17003, Spain. pere@eia.udg.edu.
Pere
P
Ridao
Vicorob Research Institute, Universitat de Girona, c/Pic de Peguera 13-Parc Científic i Tecnològic de la UdG-CIRS Building, Girona l17003, Spain. dribas@udg.edu.
David
D
Ribas
3D; AUV; SLAM; bathymetry; multibeam