A Simulation-based Benchmark for LiDAR SLAM in featureless Tunnels with a novel Robustness Evaluation

The simulated environment is part of the tunnel system in the Zentrum am Berg (ZaB), located within the terraced mining area of Erzberg, near Eisenerz in Austria. The ZaB facility offers a total length of 4 km of tunnels and mining galleries for testing and training. Our proposed tunnel model covers 1.5 km of it and comprises 2 parallel highway tunnels and 2 parallel railway tunnels, interconnected by cross passages and galleries. The tunnels are around 8 (railway) or 10 meters (highway) wide and 7 meters high with flat terrain and slight curvature. Unlike the mining tunnels in the SubT-Tunnel dataset, characterized by abundant planar and edge features, ZaB is a traffic tunnel system with a highly simplified architectural structure, lacking distinguished construction elements such as platforms or columns. It inherently exhibits large-scale homogeneous characteristics.