Point clouds registration system for autonomous vehicles

Abstract

In one embodiment, a system is disclosed for registration of point clouds for autonomous driving vehicles (ADV). The system receives a number of point clouds and corresponding poses from ADVs equipped with LIDAR sensors capturing point clouds of a navigable area to be mapped, where the point clouds correspond to a first coordinate system. The system partitions the point clouds and the corresponding poses into one or more loop partitions based on navigable loop information captured by the point clouds. For each of the loop partitions, the system applies an optimization model to point clouds corresponding to the loop partition to register the point clouds. They system merges the one or more loop partitions together using a pose graph algorithm, where the merged partitions of point clouds are utilized to perceive a driving environment surrounding the ADV.