Normal Distributions Transform Traversability Maps: LIDAR-Only Approach for Traversability Mapping in Outdoor Environments

Juhana Ahtiainen*, Todor Stoyanov, Jari Saarinen

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

43 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Safe and reliable autonomous navigation in unstructured environments remains a challenge for field robots. In particular, operating on vegetated terrain is problematic, because simple purely geometric traversability analysis methods typically classify dense foliage as nontraversable. As traversing through vegetated terrain is often possible and even preferable in some cases (e.g., to avoid executing longer paths), more complex multimodal traversability analysis methods are necessary. In this article, we propose a three-dimensional (3D) traversability mapping algorithm for outdoor environments, able to classify sparsely vegetated areas as traversable, without compromising accuracy on other terrain types. The proposed normal distributions transform traversability mapping (NDT-TM) representation exploits 3D LIDAR sensor data to incrementally expand normal distributions transform occupancy (NDT-OM) maps. In addition to geometrical information, we propose to augment the NDT-OM representation with statistical data of the permeability and reflectivity of each cell. Using these additional features, we train a support-vector machine classifier to discriminate between traversable and nondrivable areas of the NDT-TM maps. We evaluate classifier performance on a set of challenging outdoor environments and note improvements over previous purely geometrical traversability analysis approaches.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)600-621
Number of pages22
JournalJournal of Field Robotics
Volume34
Issue number3
Early online date2016
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2017
MoE publication typeA1 Journal article-refereed

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Normal Distributions Transform Traversability Maps: LIDAR-Only Approach for Traversability Mapping in Outdoor Environments'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this