{"ID":2871700,"CreatedAt":"2026-06-01T04:54:23.091178241Z","UpdatedAt":"2026-06-01T04:54:23.091178241Z","DeletedAt":null,"paper_url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.10032","arxiv_id":"2509.10032","title":"Design and Evaluation of Two Spherical Systems for Mobile 3D Mapping","abstract":"Spherical robots offer unique advantages for mapping applications in hazardous or confined environments, thanks to their protective shells and omnidirectional mobility. This work presents two complementary spherical mapping systems: a lightweight, non-actuated design and an actuated variant featuring internal pendulum-driven locomotion. Both systems are equipped with a Livox Mid-360 solid-state LiDAR sensor and run LiDAR-Inertial Odometry (LIO) algorithms on resource-constrained hardware. We assess the mapping accuracy of these systems by comparing the resulting 3D point-clouds from the LIO algorithms to a ground truth map. The results indicate that the performance of state-of-the-art LIO algorithms deteriorates due to the high dynamic movement introduced by the spherical locomotion, leading to globally inconsistent maps and sometimes unrecoverable drift.","short_abstract":"Spherical robots offer unique advantages for mapping applications in hazardous or confined environments, thanks to their protective shells and omnidirectional mobility. This work presents two complementary spherical mapping systems: a lightweight, non-actuated design and an actuated variant featuring internal pendulum-...","url_abs":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.10032","url_pdf":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2509.10032v1","authors":"[\"Marawan Khalil\",\"Fabian Arzberger\",\"Andreas Nüchter\"]","published":"2025-09-12T07:52:56Z","proceeding":"cs.RO","tasks":"[\"cs.RO\"]","methods":"[]","has_code":false}