While automatic modeling and mapping of outdoor environments is well-established, the indoor equivalent of automated generation of building floor plans poses a challenge. In fact, outdoor localization is commonly available and inexpensive through the existing satellite positioning systems, such as GPS and Galileo. However, these technologies are not applicable in indoor environments, since a direct line of sight to the satellites, orbiting the globes, is required. As a substitution, the

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... l literature comprises several proposals for the development of simultaneous indoor localization and mapping (SLAM). In these approaches, the authors mostly exploit indoor resources such as the WiFi access points and the mobile smart devices carried by individuals in the indoor environment. Collecting data from several mobile devices is referred to as crowdsensing. To enable the generation of two-dimensional (2D) as well as three-dimensional (3D) maps, we propose crowdsensing of point clouds, which are 3D data structures of points in space. For localization, we integrate two features of a recently developed mobile device, called Project Tango. Specifically, the Tango platform provides two main technologies for reliable localization, namely motion tracking and area learning. Moreover, Tango-powered devices provide us with the ability to collect point clouds though a third technology, called depth perception. In the past few years, spatial data obtained from range imaging was used to generate indoor maps. Nevertheless, range images are expensive and not always available. The required equipment, e.g. laser range scanners, are both expensive in procurement and require trained personnel for proper setup and operation. In this thesis, we aim for obtaining spatial point clouds via crowdsensing. The main idea is to use sensor data which can be scanned by volunteering individuals using easy to handle mobile devices. Specifically, we depend on depth perception capabilities as provided by Google Tango-powered tablet computers. A crow [...]