a memory; and

at least one processor coupled to the memory and configured to perform operations comprising:

estimating a pose for an autonomous vehicle based on features extracted from a reference point cloud as compared to semantic features representing surroundings of the autonomous vehicle, wherein the reference point cloud represents data from a plurality of lidar sweeps and is extracted from a high-definition map; and

validating the pose estimate as a pose of the autonomous vehicle based on first coordinates derived from a query point cloud generated from a real-time lidar sweep of the surroundings evaluated against second coordinates derived from the reference point cloud by at least one of: aligning the first coordinates with the second coordinates, identifying difference between the first coordinates and the second coordinates, or merging the first coordinates with the second coordinates; and

causing the autonomous vehicle to perform a driving maneuver based on the validated pose estimate.