PALoc: Advancing SLAM Benchmarking with Prior-Assisted 6-DoF Trajectory Generation and Uncertainty Estimation

Accurately generating ground truth (GT) trajectories is essential for Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) evaluation, particularly under varying environmental conditions. This study introduces a systematic approach employing a prior map-assisted framework for generating dense six-degree-of-freedom (6-DoF) GT poses for the first time, enhancing the fidelity of both indoor and outdoor SLAM datasets. Our method excels in handling degenerate and stationary conditions frequently encountered in SLAM datasets, thereby increasing robustness and precision. A significant aspect of our approach is the detailed derivation of covariances within the factor graph, enabling an in-depth analysis of pose uncertainty propagation. This analysis crucially contributes to demonstrating specific pose uncertainties and enhancing trajectory reliability from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. Additionally, we provide an open-source toolbox (https://github.com/JokerJohn/CloudMapEvaluation) for map evaluation criteria, facilitating the indirect assessment of overall trajectory precision. Experimental results show at least a 30% improvement in map accuracy and a 20% increase in direct trajectory accuracy compared to the Iterative Closest Point (ICP) citesharp2002icp algorithm across diverse campus environments, with substantially enhanced robustness. Our open-source solution (https://github.com/JokerJohn/PALoc), extensively applied in the FusionPortableciteJiao2022Mar dataset, is geared towards SLAM benchmark dataset augmentation and represents a significant advancement in SLAM evaluations.