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arXiv · 2510.22164

LT-Exosense: A Vision-centric Multi-session Mapping System for Lifelong Safe Navigation of Exoskeletons

Jianeng Wang·Matias Mattamala·Christina Kassab·Nived Chebrolu·Guillaume Burger·Fabio Elnecave·Marine Petriaux·Maurice Fallon
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Abstract

Self-balancing exoskeletons offer a promising mobility solution for individuals with lower-limb disabilities. For reliable long-term operation, these exoskeletons require a perception system that is effective in changing environments. In this work, we introduce LT-Exosense, a vision-centric, multi-session mapping system designed to support long-term (semi)-autonomous navigation for exoskeleton users. LT-Exosense extends single-session mapping capabilities by incrementally fusing spatial knowledge across multiple sessions, detecting environmental changes, and updating a persistent global map. This representation enables intelligent path planning, which can adapt to newly observed obstacles and can recover previous routes when obstructions are removed. We validate LT-Exosense through several real-world experiments, demonstrating a scalable multi-session map that achieves an average point-to-point error below 5 cm when compared to ground-truth laser scans. We also illustrate the potential application of adaptive path planning in dynamically changing indoor environments.

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Jianeng Wang, Matias Mattamala, Christina Kassab, Nived Chebrolu, Guillaume Burger, Fabio Elnecave, Marine Petriaux, Maurice Fallon. 2025-10-25. LT-Exosense: A Vision-centric Multi-session Mapping System for Lifelong Safe Navigation of Exoskeletons. https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.22164

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