To explore the illumination adaptability of environmental perception equipment in application of SLAM (Simultaneous Localization And Mapping),comparative experiments of lidar and depth camera for SLAM were carried out under different illumination intensities.Combined with the LOAM (Lidar Odometry And Mapping) and RTAB-MAP (Real-Time Appearance-Based Mapping) algorithms,a 16-line lidar and a depth camera were placed on a four-wheel differential robot to carry out SLAM application in bright and dark environments.The experimental results show that in bright environment,the median errors of system deviations are 0.203 m and 0.644 m for the visual SLAM and lidar SLAM,respectively,which are 0.282 m and 0.683 m respectively in dark environment.The depth camera outperforms the lidar in positioning and mapping performance in both bright and dark environment,and it can be concluded that the depth camera is more illumination adaptable.