mola_lidar_odometry

LIDAR odometry component based on the MOLA and MRPT frameworks, compatible with ROS 2.

Contents

This repository provides a C++ library mola_lidar_odometry implementing LIDAR odometry. Sensor input is provided via MOLA components, and ROS 2 example launch files are provided in ros2-launchs.

A CLI interface mola-lidar-odometry-cli is also provided for running on offline datasets.

Build and install

Refer to: https://docs.mola-slam.org/latest/#installing

Lidar Inertial Odometry (LIO) demo with Oxford Spires:

Lidar Odometry (LO) demo with KITTI:

Documentation and tutorials

See: https://docs.mola-slam.org/

ROS build farm status

Distro	Build dev	Release
ROS 2 Humble (u22.04)
ROS 2 Jazzy (u24.04)
ROS 2 Kilted (u24.04)
ROS 2 Lyrical (u26.04)
ROS 2 Rolling (u26.04)

Binary package build status per ROS 2 distro:

Package	ROS 2 Humble (u22.04)	ROS 2 Jazzy (u24.04)	ROS 2 Kilted (u24.04)	ROS 2 Lyrical (u26.04)	ROS 2 Rolling (u26.04)
mola_lidar_odometry

Each cell stacks the badges for that ROS 2 distro, in this order (when available):

• Ubuntu (amd64)
• Ubuntu (arm64)
• RHEL (x86_64) – not available for Humble, since mrpt3 cannot be built there.
• Fedora (x86_64) – only available since ROS 2 Lyrical.

EOL Distro	Last release
ROS2 Iron (u22.04)

Citation

The latest publication on MOLA is (ArXiV).

@article{blanco2025mola_lo,
    author = {Blanco-Claraco, Jose Luis},
    title ={{A flexible framework for accurate LiDAR odometry, map manipulation, and localization}},
    journal = {The International Journal of Robotics Research},
    volume = {44},
    number = {9},
    pages = {1553--1599},
    year = {2025},
    doi = {10.1177/02783649251316881},
    URL = { https://doi.org/10.1177/02783649251316881},
    eprint = {2407.20465},
}

License

Copyright (C) 2018-2026 Jose Luis Blanco jlblanco@ual.es, University of Almeria

This package is released under the GNU GPL v3 license as open source, with the main intention of being useful for research and evaluation purposes. Commercial licenses available upon request.

Contributions require acceptance of the Contributor License Agreement (CLA).

Changelog for package mola_lidar_odometry

3.3.0 (2026-09-28)

• viz: expose grid spacing as env var
• Ouster Rev8 launcher: accept low-overlap ICP, predict motion with the IMU (#190)
• Ouster Rev8 launcher: incremental local map and per-point RGB coloring by default
• add rosbag1 as build dep for binaries to have this functionality
• ci: add GitHub release workflow on version tags
• Recover the observation radius from the raw scan when every filtered layer is empty
• Add mola-lo-gui-ouster-rev8, accept an .osf argument in the Ouster wrappers
• Feed IMU samples to the generators through one shared output map
• Test that every pipeline resolves; document pipeline blocks
• Pipelines: rebuild the single-filter GICP variant as an overlay
• Pipelines: assemble the 3D pipelines from shared blocks
• deskewTwistFromOdometry: use the covered interval when odometry starts mid-sweep
• Launchers: pin the first pose when selecting the smoother
• De-skew with an independent odometry's velocity (deskew_odometry_sensor_label)
• feat: expose a weight on the pose prior handed to the ICP solver
• feat: a refused registration contributes the prediction, not a gap
• feat: optional Mahalanobis gate on the ICP registration result
• offline CLI: do not publish the local map by default
• GrandTour pipeline: expose the cov2cov incidence and per-point range weighting
• pipelines: use $import/$define to collapse thin variants, drop stale experiments
• GrandTour: select the smoother and a scene-adaptive point budget
• feat: add --output-tum-path-smoothed to the offline CLI
• Default pipeline: enable the local map's covariance cache admission gate
• IncrementalPointCloud: own default for the eviction cube, 1.0x radius
• Publisher: reach the points-map view via mrpt::<maps::asPointsMap>()
• remove obsolete rgbd pipeline (refer to mola_vision)
• gicp pipeline: new default max icp iters 25->16
• store IMU readings in simplemaps for attitude aid in georef (#173)
• Move the pipelines to the renamed, squared robust-kernel scale
• Expose the TSDF layer's rendering knobs in the dual-map pipeline
• GrandTour: add a 'hesai_raw' LiDAR selector for the uncompensated cloud
• GrandTour: keep the scan point timestamps at their own reference
• cli: --module, to run a second front-end in the batch tool
• Add drop_stale_scans: a lossless input queue for offline runs
• Optional, env-gated log of the local-map insert/skip decision
• KITTI eval: record that MOLA_INITIAL_VX is coupled to the pipeline, not the dataset
• KITTI: run the shipped pipeline, which halves absolute trajectory error
• Stop refusing recordings with more bags than launch-file slots
• FIX: a manual relocalization request was ignored unless the configured init method was FixedPose
• Add a pipeline that carries a point map and a TSDF at once
• cli: expose the fused trajectory, and bridge a module's pose to the odometry
• P7: port mola_lidar_odometry to MRPT 3.x
• Fail loudly instead of running with no extrinsics or no lidar topic
• Keep the odometry vertical reference consistent when the source goes quiet
• GrandTour: optional second LiDAR, and a TF-bag override
• Offline CLI: accept several lidar labels, one sensors entry each
• Allow the verticality reading to come from an odometry source's attitude
• GrandTour: add a MOLA_GRANDTOUR_LIDAR selector (hesai/livox/velodyne)
• Raise rosbag1 launch bag-slot cap to 5, honor MOLA_ODOMETRY_OBS_CLASS in GUI YAMLs
• GrandTour: fuse the legged odometry by default, as SE(3)
• Offline CLI: allow fusing a 3D odometry source as SE(3)
• CI: check this repo's docs pages against the full doc set
• Offline CLI: allow wheel-odometry fusion from a ROS 2 bag
• docs: fix the inverted visualizer table and the PIPELINE_YAML variable that does not exist
• GICP pipeline: expose current-pose XYZ corner size via MOLA_LO_CURRENT_POSE_CORNER_SIZE
• GrandTour: let the GUI preview camera be selected
• GrandTour: default to the incremental local map
• KITTI/Oxford Spires: raise the smoother's relative-pose prior floor
• GrandTour: allow selecting, and default to, the STIM320 IMU when its bags are present
• README: fix the broken Docs badge link
• Oxford Spires: keep the accelerometer in the IMU deskew
• KITTI profile: incremental local map plus the map-side planarity gate
• Reach mp2p_icp's surface-geometry-class pairing weight from the pipeline
• Expose the plane-regularization options of the cov-capable map classes
• Add a Newer College dataset profile
• Add a GEODE dataset profile
• Add a Hilti 2022 / Hilti-Oxford dataset profile (renamed from hilti)
• GrandTour: optional legged odometry input
• Give the observation layer a 2.0 m covariance neighborhood by

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