KNaCK-SLAM: Kinematic Navigation and Cartography Knapsack Velocity-aided LiDAR Inertial Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM)

As manned missions return to the Moon and continue on to Mars in the near future, surface navigation and mapping in extremely low solar illumination and unstructured environments without navigation aids like Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) becomes more important than even. This work explores the use of LiDAR-based Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) to solve those problems. A LiDAR-based SLAM system be deployed as a self-contained instrument independent of external sensor inputs, and can operate in unlit environments where Vision-based SLAM system are inoperable. Furthermore, the advent of chip-scale frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) LiDAR technology provides Doppler-velocity information for each sensed point in the scene, which can be used to further constrain localization error in the SLAM front-end. Here we discuss the development of SLAM algorithm that makes use of the unique velocity and range sensing capabilities of FMCW-LiDAR based sensors for rover and kinematic (i.e. person-mounted) mobile navigation and terrain mapping applications for surface exploration and scientific investigations.