Tightly Coupled Inertial Visual GNSS Solution for LIDAR Mapping

This technical report presents a tightly coupled GNSS and inertial navigation system (INS) solution aimed at enhancing LIDAR mapping capabilities in challenging GNSS conditions. The report outlines the limitations of traditional GNSS-RTK positioning, particularly in environments with GNSS outages, such as urban canyons and under bridges. It introduces a novel approach that integrates visual inertial SLAM with GNSS/INS to improve navigation accuracy and reliability. The proposed solution is designed to minimize system complexity while ensuring a high RTK fix rate. The report details the initialization process, which is achieved within seconds, and emphasizes the system's long-term reliability. Furthermore, it discusses the advantages of using visual SLAM over LIDAR SLAM, particularly in terms of cost and power consumption. The report concludes with plans to assess the performance of the proposed solution by generating a LIDAR point cloud and evaluating its consistency, thus providing a comprehensive understanding of the system's capabilities.