LIDAR Based Altitude Estimation for Autonomous Vehicles using Elevation Maps

This paper presents a strategy to estimate the vehicle altitude using predefined elevation maps. The map images in multilayers roads must be distinguished and separated with respect to the driving segments during the autonomous driving. This can be achieved by continuously estimating the altitude value and retiring the map images accordingly. The main influence is to increase the lateral and longitudinal localization based on matching the LIDAR and retrieving map images. Accordingly, a framework is designed and evaluated in complicated environments of common driving areas between bridges, tunnels and ground roads. The experimental results have verified that the proposed strategy is very reliable and provides precise altitude estimation with averaged accuracy of 10cm.