Preliminary Comparison Between Handheld and Mobile Robotic Mapping Systems

Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable is one of the Sustainable Development Goals drawn by the United Nations. To support renovation projects, a first essential step is to gain an updated and precise knowledge of indoor and outdoor public spaces and urban areas, which requires accurate and fast mapping systems. In this context, in addition to well-established manual topographic techniques, mobile robotics could play a crucial role in the perspective of acquiring automatic surveys of such environments. In this paper, we present a preliminary comparison between handheld and mobile robotic mapping platforms, using a 3D laser scanner that realizes real-time mapping on the field. Experimental results show that the robotic system could be an efficient alternative to the handheld-mode survey, providing precise point clouds with uniform density.