In research it is important to have a clear understanding of the problem formulation before looking for a solution. Up until this point the lidar localization problem has not been well defined and this has lead to misaligned interpretations of the research direction.
Part of my time this week was dedicated to writing up the lidar localization problem in a well defined mathematical format in order to root out any ambiguity that may be present. That included defining the two entites in the situation, the robot and the environment.
The environment shall be modelled as a map in 2D space where a closed room is generated by walls which in turn are generated by the connection of sequential points in 2D space. The 2D assumption is a reasonable simplification at this point by may be dropped in the future.
The robot shall be modelled as a single point mass in the 2D plane and the lidar ray will be modelled with two parameters representing the distance to the closest wall in the direction the lidar is pointing and the angular position of the lidar.
The above synopsis outlines the basic principle of the problem however the rigorous mathematical representation is available on the LEMUR git