A method for accurate map construction using time registration from a moving SOKUIKI sensor

Mobile robots have various sensors that are considered as their eyes and a two-dimensional laser scanner (SOKUIKI sensor) is one of them. This sensor is commonly used for constructing environment maps or detecting obstacles. It is very important to estimate accurately the sensor's position and direction when scan data is obtained in order to use correctly such a sensor for these purposes. On the other hand, scanning sensors have an essencial problem: time lag. That is, the time when the laser is transmitted to each direction is different. Thus the map has many errors if the measurement time lag problem is not resolved. This paper presents a method for laser scan data synchronization using time registration and, as a practical application, we show its effectiveness for accurate map construction.