HD Ground - A Database for Ground Texture Based Localization

We present the HD Ground Database, a comprehensive database for ground texture based localization. It contains sequences of a variety of textures, obtained using a downward facing camera. In contrast to existing databases of ground images, the HD Ground Database is larger, has a greater variety of textures, and has a higher image resolution with less motion blur. Also, our database enables the first systematic study of how natural changes of the ground that occur over time affect localization performance, and it allows to examine a teach-and-repeat navigation scenario. We use the HD Ground Database to evaluate four state-of-the-art localization approaches for global localization, localization with the approximate pose being known, and relative localization.