Automatic point cloud registration algorithm based on the feature histogram of local surface

In this paper, we present an efficient algorithm for point cloud registration in presence of low overlap rate and high noise. The proposed registration method mainly includes four parts: the loop voxel filtering, the curvature-based key point selection, the robust geometric descriptor, and the determining and optimization of correspondences based on key point spatial relationship. The loop voxel filtering filters point clouds to a specified resolution. We propose a key point selection algorithm which has a better anti-noise and fast ability. The feature descriptor of key points is highly exclusive which is based on the geometric relationship between the neighborhood points and the center of gravity of the neighborhood. The correspondences in the pair of two point clouds are determined according to the combined features of key points. Finally, the singular value decomposition and ICP algorithm are applied to align two point clouds. The proposed registration method can accurately and quickly register point clouds of different resolutions in noisy situations. We validate our proposal by presenting a quantitative experimental comparison with state-of-the-art methods. Experimental results show that the proposed point cloud registration algorithm has faster calculation speed, higher registration accuracy, and better anti-noise performance.