SEGMENTING GROUND POINTS FROM NON-GROUND POINTS TO ASSIST WITH LOCALIZATION OF AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES

According to an aspect of an embodiment, operations may comprise receiving, from a LIDAR mounted on a vehicle, a first 3D point cloud comprising points of a region around the vehicle as observed by the LIDAR. The operations may also comprise accessing an HD map comprising a second 3D point cloud comprising points of the region around the vehicle. The operations may also comprise segmenting LIDAR ground points from LIDAR non-ground points in the first 3D point cloud. The operations may also comprise segmenting map ground points from map non-ground points in the second 3D point cloud. The operations may also comprise determining a pose of the vehicle by matching the LIDAR ground points to the map ground points and by matching the LIDAR non-ground points to the map non-ground points.