On the utilization of Simultaneous Localization and Mapping(SLAM) along with vehicle dynamics in Mobile Road Mapping Systems

Mobile Road Mapping Systems (MRMS) are the current solution to the growing demand for high definition road surface maps in wide ranging applications from pavement management to autonomous vehicle testing. The focus of this research work is to improve the accuracy of MRMS by using the principles of Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM). First a framework for describing the sensor measurement models in MRMS is developed. Next the problem of estimating the road surface from the set of sensor measurements is formulated as a SLAM problem and two approaches are proposed to solve the formulated problem. The first is an incremental solution wherein sensor measurements are processed in sequence using an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF). The second is a post-processing solution wherein the SLAM problem is formulated as an inference problem over a factor graph and existing factor graph SLAM techniques are used to solve the problem. For the mobile road mapping problem, the road surface being measured is one the primary inputs to the dynamics of the MRMS. Hence, concurrent to the main objective this work also investigates the use of the dynamics of the host vehicle of the system to improve the accuracy of the MRMS. Finally a novel method that builds off the concepts of the popular model fitting algorithm, Random Sampling and Consensus (RANSAC), is developed in order to identify outliers in road surface measurements and estimate the road elevations at grid nodes using these measurements. The developed methods are validated in a simulated environment and the results demonstrate a significant improvement in the accuracy of MRMS over current state-of-the art methods.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Mechanical Engineering

Department dc:contributor.department

Mechanical Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2019

Author dc:creator

• Pereira, Savio Joseph

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Ferris, John B.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Sandu, Corina
• Kurdila, Andrew J.
• Taheri, Saied
• Psiaki, Mark L.

• EKF
• SLAM
• SAM
• RANSAC

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Dc Identifier Other

vt_gsexam:22347

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/94425