Tiered-Resolution Volumetric Mapping for Real-Time Simultaneous Planning and Mapping on Natural Outdoor Environments
Real-time volumetric mapping for a planning robot is dominated by the cost of integrating and storing information at the finest resolution, yet only a small fraction of any map ever lies on or near a path the planner actually considers. We exploit this with a tiered-resolution mapping mechanism that integrates LiDAR into a single map structure at two resolutions simultaneously: fine inside a corridor around the robot's current plan, and coarse everywhere else.