{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,1]],"date-time":"2026-06-01T12:55:57Z","timestamp":1780318557258,"version":"3.54.1"},"reference-count":35,"publisher":"SAGE Publications","issue":"12","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2012,9,24]],"date-time":"2012-09-24T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1348444800000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/page\/policies\/text-and-data-mining-license"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["journals.sagepub.com"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["The International Journal of Robotics Research"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2012,10]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>Registration of range sensor measurements is an important task in mobile robotics and has received a lot of attention. Several iterative optimization schemes have been proposed in order to align three-dimensional (3D) point scans. With the more widespread use of high-frame-rate 3D sensors and increasingly more challenging application scenarios for mobile robots, there is a need for fast and accurate registration methods that current state-of-the-art algorithms cannot always meet. This work proposes a novel algorithm that achieves accurate point cloud registration an order of a magnitude faster than the current state of the art. The speedup is achieved through the use of a compact spatial representation: the Three-Dimensional Normal Distributions Transform (3D-NDT). In addition, a fast, global-descriptor based on the 3D-NDT is defined and used to achieve reliable initial poses for the iterative algorithm. Finally, a closed-form expression for the covariance of the proposed method is also derived. The proposed algorithms are evaluated on two standard point cloud data sets, resulting in stable performance on a par with or better than the state of the art. The implementation is available as an open-source package for the Robot Operating System (ROS).<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1177\/0278364912460895","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2012,9,24]],"date-time":"2012-09-24T20:46:43Z","timestamp":1348519603000},"page":"1377-1393","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/sage-journals-update-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":218,"title":["Fast and accurate scan registration through minimization of the distance between compact 3D NDT representations"],"prefix":"10.1177","volume":"31","author":[{"given":"Todor","family":"Stoyanov","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Center of Applied Autonomous Sensor Systems (AASS), \u00d6rebro University, Sweden"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Martin","family":"Magnusson","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Center of Applied Autonomous Sensor Systems (AASS), \u00d6rebro University, Sweden"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Henrik","family":"Andreasson","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Center of Applied Autonomous Sensor Systems (AASS), \u00d6rebro University, Sweden"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Achim J","family":"Lilienthal","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Center of Applied Autonomous Sensor Systems (AASS), \u00d6rebro University, Sweden"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"179","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2012,9,24]]},"reference":[{"key":"bibr1-0278364912460895","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/IROS.2007.4399381"},{"key":"bibr2-0278364912460895","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/S0921-8890(03)00008-3"},{"key":"bibr3-0278364912460895","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/34.121791"},{"key":"bibr4-0278364912460895","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/IROS.2003.1249285"},{"key":"bibr5-0278364912460895","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/s10514-011-9221-8"},{"key":"bibr6-0278364912460895","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/ROBOT.2007.363961"},{"key":"bibr7-0278364912460895","volume-title":"Proceedings Eurographics Symposium on Geometric Processing","author":"Gelfand N","year":"2005"},{"key":"bibr8-0278364912460895","first-page":"487","volume-title":"International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV 2003)","author":"Goldberger J","year":"2008"},{"key":"bibr9-0278364912460895","first-page":"69","volume-title":"Computer Vision (ECCV 2002) (Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 2353)","author":"Granger S","year":"2006"},{"key":"bibr10-0278364912460895","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/ICASSP.2007.366913"},{"key":"bibr11-0278364912460895","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.inffus.2011.08.003"},{"key":"bibr12-0278364912460895","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1364\/JOSAA.4.000629"},{"key":"bibr13-0278364912460895","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/MFI.2008.4648062"},{"key":"bibr14-0278364912460895","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/TPAMI.2010.223"},{"key":"bibr15-0278364912460895","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/34.765655"},{"key":"bibr16-0278364912460895","first-page":"1","volume-title":"IEEE International Conference on Information Fusion","author":"Julier S","year":"2007"},{"key":"bibr17-0278364912460895","unstructured":"Magnusson M (2009) The Three-Dimensional Normal-Distributions Transform \u2014 an Efficient Representation for Registration, Surface Analysis, and Loop Detection. 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