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arXiv · 2203.10174

Are We Ready for Radar to Replace Lidar in All-Weather Mapping and Localization?

Keenan Burnett·Yuchen Wu·David J. Yoon·Angela P. Schoellig·Timothy D. Barfoot
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Abstract

We present an extensive comparison between three topometric localization systems: radar-only, lidar-only, and a cross-modal radar-to-lidar system across varying seasonal and weather conditions using the Boreas dataset. Contrary to our expectations, our experiments showed that our lidar-only pipeline achieved the best localization accuracy even during a snowstorm. Our results seem to suggest that the sensitivity of lidar localization to moderate precipitation has been exaggerated in prior works. However, our radar-only pipeline was able to achieve competitive accuracy with a much smaller map. Furthermore, radar localization and radar sensors still have room to improve and may yet prove valuable in extreme weather or as a redundant backup system. Code for this project can be found at: https://github.com/utiasASRL/vtr3

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Keenan Burnett, Yuchen Wu, David J. Yoon, Angela P. Schoellig, Timothy D. Barfoot. 2022-03-18. Are We Ready for Radar to Replace Lidar in All-Weather Mapping and Localization?. https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.10174

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