2D Localization of Outdoor Mobile Robots Using 3D Laser Range Data

Takeshi Takahashi
Master's thesis
Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University,
May, 2007

Abstract
Robot localization in outdoor environments is a challenging problem because of unstructured terrains. Ladars that are not horizontally attached have benefits for detecting obstacles but are not suitable for some localization algorithms used for indoor robots, which have horizontally fixed ladars. The data obtained from tilted ladars are 3D while these from non-tilted ladars are 2D. We present a 2D localization approach for these non-horizontally attached ladars. This algorithm combines 2D particle filter localization with a 3D perception system. We localize the vehicle by comparing a local map with a previously known map. These maps are created by converting 3D data into 2D data. Experimental results show that our approach is able to utilize the benefits of 3D data and 2D maps to efficiently overcome the problems of outdoor environments.

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