Accurate and Dynamic Environment Modeling: Cost-effective Alternatives to 3D LiDAR

The reconstruction of dynamic environments is indispensable in numerous applications, including robotics, ensuring autonomous vehicle safety, industrial surveillance, and environment modeling and mapping. The utilization of LiDAR 3D technology is widespread due to its ability to provide precise measurements of distance and angles. However, due to its prohibitive cost, the widespread accessibility of 3D LiDAR remains limited. In this paper, we propose a low-cost alternative to 3D LiDAR technology that utilizes readily available components, namely the RPLidar A1 and a simple servo motor, both controlled by a Raspberry Pi3 and programmed using Python. The innovative approach proposed in this paper successfully achieved highly accurate environment representations in 3D. These reconstructions can be utilized for surface mapping, scene classification, and facilitating typical robotic tasks such as autonomous navigation and collision avoidance.