In this Article VisCircle provides a short introduction into automatic 3D mapping.

1. Beginners Guide: What is automatic 3D mapping?
ROAMS robot works cheaply and effectively.
Three-dimensional mapping makes sense not only for military purposes, but also in architecture.
But so far such a conventional 3D lidar system, which consists of several lasers that measure in
different directions, cost over 100.000 Dollars. Now researchers from New Jersey have developed
the robot ROAMS, which provides adequate images for architectural or military mapping purposes
– and only costs around 15.000 Dollar.
ROAMS stands for Remotely Operated Autonomous Mapping System“. The mobile machine uses
various commercially available techniques to create three-dimensional maps of the environment.
The robot was developed by the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey, on behalf
of the US-Army.
The system is mainly based on a radar-like method for optical distance and speed measurement.
Lidar uses a laser that is deflected by a fast rotating mirror and measures the light reflected from the
surrounding surfaces and objects. Lidar has long been used by autonomous aircraft used in space
travel.
Instead of the expensive 3D lidar system, which measures in different directions with several lasers
and costs over 100.000 Dollar., the Stevens researchers use the much cheaper 2D lidar system for
about 6.000 Dollar. The 2D lidar system was mounted on a swivelling, rotating scaffold. Although
the resolution of the images is lower, it is sufficient for most purposes.
In about 30 seconds, the system scans a 160-meter wide area. A camera, which was also mounted on
the framework, complements the 3D map with missing colour information. The researchers have
succeeded in keeping the resolution of the objects always adequate, irrespective of the distance. A
human operator follows the robot at a maximum distance of 1.5 kilometres in a second vehicle to
control ROAMs.

2. According to Kishore Pochiraju, professor and director of the university`s Design and
Manufacturing Institute, the ultimate goal of the project is that the robots can work completely
autonomously. The machines are then set down in the target area and independently create a
complete map in 3D. The next challenge in autonomous mapping is to detect obstacles, recognize
and exchange data between multiple robots.