An Engineering Solution for Multi-sensor Fusion SLAM in Indoor and Outdoor Scenes

• Published in: Chinese Control Conference pp. 4522 - 4528
• Main Authors: Jiang, Fengyang, Cheng, Yao, Wang, Huaizhen, Han, Zhe, Huang, Yang, Zhou, Fengyu, Jiang, Jiaju
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: Technical Committee on Control Theory, Chinese Association of Automation 28.07.2024
• Subjects: Cameras; engineering solution; Laser radar; loop closure detection; Multi-sensor fusion; Robot vision systems; Semantics; Simultaneous localization and mapping; stereo-inertial odometry; Three-dimensional displays; Visualization
• ISSN: 1934-1768
• DOI: 10.23919/CCC63176.2024.10661451

In this contribution, an engineering solution for multi-sensor fusion simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) is proposed for both indoor and outdoor scenarios, targeting at enhanced robustness, accuracy, and scene adaptability. It consists of three powerful schemes. A scheme-switching mechanism is designed based on a thorough performance evaluation and selects the most suitable multi-sensor fusion SLAM method flexibly based on the characteristics of the scenes and the setting of the robot products. Among the three schemes, LVI-SAM-Stereo is a novel multi-sensor fusion SLAM approach that tightly couples a stereo camera with a 3D light detection and ranging (LiDAR) sensor and an inertial measurement unit (IMU). Its stereo-inertial odometry provides a more robust initial guess for the LiDAR registration compared to its monocular counterpart in critical mapping scenarios. Moreover, a visual verification mechanism for the LiDAR loop closure detection is proposed to effectively avoid incorrect LiDAR loop closures. A thorough evaluation with both datasets and real-world experiments in various indoor and outdoor scenarios verify that our proposed engineering solution achieves a satisfactory performance and meets the engineering requirements for autonomous navigation of robot products.