On the bending problem for large scale mapping

During simultaneous localization and mapping, geometrical constraints are established between map features. These constraints, introduced through measurements and motion prediction, produce a bending effect in the event of closing a large loop. In this paper we present a discussion of the bending problem for trajectory based representations. Furthermore, we propose a generic approach to reduce the bending effect that exploits common geometrical constraints in human-made environments through the use of a heading based curvature measurement. We show by means of experimental results that our approach increases significantly both the global and local map accuracy.