Deep learning-based point cloud registration: a comprehensive investigation

Abstract

ABSTRACT Point cloud registration is the process of aligning and merging multiple point clouds into a same coordinate system. It has many applications in computer vision, robotics, 3D reconstruction, augmented reality, and autonomous driving. Despite its wide-ranging utility, traditional algorithms grapple with challenges such as substantial noise, outliers, limited overlap, motion distortions, and handling large scenes. These complexities impede the effective deployment of point cloud registration in practical real-world scenarios. This paper conducts a comprehensive inquiry into the domain of deep learning-based point cloud registration. It synthesizes recent advancements in algorithms about point cloud registration grounded in deep learning. The exposition delineates insights from four distinct perspectives: multi-layer perceptron, deep neural network, graph convolutional network, and attention mechanism. Furthermore, the paper systematically reviews prevalent datasets and evaluation metrics associated with deep learning-based point cloud registration. A discussion on the existing challenges in point cloud registration and a forward-looking exploration of potential research directions are included.