Effective Sonar Grid map Matching for Topological Place Recognition

This paper presents a method of sonar grid map matching for topological place recognition. The proposed method provides an effective rotation invariant grid map matching method. A template grid map is firstly extracted for reliable grid map matching by filtering noisy data in local grid map. Using the template grid map, the rotation invariant grid map matching is performed by Ring Projection Transformation. The rotation invariant grid map matching selects candidate locations which are regarded as representative point for each node. Then, the topological place recognition is achieved by calculating matching probability based on the candidate location. The matching probability is acquired by using both rotation invariant grid map matching and the matching of distance and angle vectors. The proposed method can provide a successful matching even under rotation changes between grid maps. Moreover, the matching probability gives a reliable result for topological place recognition. The performance of the proposed method is verified by experimental results in a real home environment.