Patent ID: 11898869
Assignee: COMMONWEALTH SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH ORGANISATION
Field: Measurement (Instruments)
Classification: CPC G  B | IPC G

Claim 20:
21. A system for generating a map of an environment, the system including:
a plurality of vehicles, each vehicle being configured to autonomously traverse an environment and including:
a mapping system including a range sensor, the mapping system generating mapping data indicative of a three dimensional repreentation of the environment as the vehicle traverses the environment; and,
one or more electronic processing devices configured to:
a) acquire the mapping data captured by the mapping system;
b) generate frames representing parts of the environment using the mapping data;
c) receive other frame data from one or more other vehicles of the plurality of vehicles, the other frame data being indicative of other frames representing parts of the environment generated using other mapping data captured by a mapping system of the one or more other vehicles of the plurality of vehicles;
d) generate a graph representing a map of the environment by:
i) generating nodes using the frames and other frames, each node being indicative of a respective part of the environment; and,
ii) calculating edges interconnecting the nodes, the edges being indicative of spatial offsets between the nodes, wherein:
(1) each vehicle maintains a respective independent graph based on:
(a) the frames generated using the mapping data captured by the vehicle; and
(b) the other frames generated using the other mapping data captured by the one or more other vehicles of the plurality of vehicles; and,
(2) the graph generated by each vehicle is based on locally accurate tragectories traversed by the vehicles and is globally consistent with graphs generated by other vehicles of the plurality of vehicles; and,

e) control navigation of the autonomous vehicles through the environment using the map.