Pose estimation and mapping based on IMU and LiDAR

In the field of autonomous motion and mapping, estimating the position and orientiation of a moving body is of high significance. This includes in particular the latest information about acceleration, speed, traveled distance and orientation. A wide range of different technologies exists that can be applied for this purpose. In case the state determination requires the use of inertial sensors only, it is well known that these types of sensors tend to drift with time. This leads to increasing errors in the calculated trajectory, which is unacceptable if precise position information is required such as for mapping. In this paper we present a method which significantly enhances the position estimation of inertial sensors by using a 2D light detection and ranging (LiDAR) sensor.