Low-cost 3D Laser Design and Evaluation with Mapping Techniques Review

This paper presents a design of a low cost 3D laser scanner. It was developed by adding an additional axis of rotation to a planar (2D) laser scanner. By tilting the laser scanner with respect to the additional axis of rotation, a more even scan point distribution can be achieved. This paper provides an analysis of the 3D scanning performance that can be expected from such a configuration. Then a review of methods that could be appropriate for 3D mapping with such a low-cost 3D laser scanner design is provided. Experiments show that this setup can be used onboard small vehicles to perform simultaneous localization and mapping in three dimensions.