Method and Apparatus for Representing Environmental Elements, System, and Vehicle/Robot

An apparatus for representing environmental elements, comprising:

• a scan data receive module configured to receive scan data comprising at least a point cloud representing at least an environmental element from a sensor;
• a point cloud segment module configured to segment the point cloud into point clusters;
• a hierarchical grids partition module configured to partition the point clusters into hierarchical grids;
• a Gaussian distribution establish module configured to establish a Gaussian distribution for points in each cell of each of the hierarchical grids;
• and
• a Gaussian Mixture Model construct module configured to construct a Gaussian Mixture Model based on the Gaussian distribution for representing the environmental element.

A system for representing environmental elements, comprising:

• a sensor configured to detect at least an environmental element and to output scan data comprising at least a point cloud;
• and
• an apparatus configured to represent environmental elements, the apparatus comprising:
• a scan data receive module configured to receive scan data comprising at least a point cloud representing at least an environmental element from a sensor,
• a point cloud segment module configured to segment the point cloud into point clusters,
• a hierarchical grids partition module configured to partition the point clusters into hierarchical grids,
• a Gaussian distribution establish module configured to establish a Gaussian distribution for points in each cell of each of the hierarchical grids, and
• a Gaussian Mixture Model construct module configured to construct a Gaussian Mixture Model based on the Gaussian distribution for representing the environmental element.