Segmenting ground points from non-ground points to assist with localization of autonomous vehicles

A processor comprising:

• processing circuitry to cause performance of operations comprising:
• receiving a first three dimensional (3D) point cloud comprising points corresponding to a region around a vehicle as observed by a light detection and ranging (LIDAR) sensor mounted on the vehicle;
• accessing a high definition (HD) map comprising a second 3D point cloud comprising points corresponding to the region around the vehicle;
• segmenting LIDAR ground points from LIDAR non-ground points in the first 3D point cloud;
• segmenting map ground points from map non-ground points in the second 3D point cloud;
• matching points of the first 3D point cloud to points of the second 3D point cloud, the matching including the LIDAR ground points only being compared against the map ground points and the LIDAR non-ground points only being compared against the map non-ground points;
• and
• determining a pose of the vehicle based at least on the matching, wherein matches between the LIDAR ground points and the map ground points are weighted differently than matches between the LIDAR non-ground points and the map non-ground points in the determining the pose.

A system comprising:

• one or more processing units to perform operations comprising:
• receiving a first three dimensional (3D) point cloud comprising points corresponding to a region around a vehicle as observed by a light detection and ranging (LIDAR) sensor mounted on the vehicle;
• accessing a high definition (HD) map comprising a second 3D point cloud comprising points corresponding to the region around the vehicle;
• segmenting LIDAR ground points from LIDAR non-ground points in the first 3D point cloud;
• segmenting map ground points from map non-ground points in the second 3D point cloud;
• determining a first correspondence between one or more LIDAR ground points and one or more map ground points;
• determining a second correspondence between one or more LIDAR non-ground points and one or more map non-ground points;
• and
• determining a pose of the vehicle based at least on the first correspondence and the second correspondence.