SLAM Data Sets

24 Dec 2010 robots  ros  slam  Over the past semester I've been spending a lot of time working with low-cost SLAM. In doing so, I've collected a number of datasets around the Albany campus. I've uploaded a number of them (as ROS bag files), along with sample maps, to this site. All are free to use these datasets for whatever they please -- however, please post back maps and algorithms/parameters used to create them. Over time I would like to develop a set of best-known algorithms/parameters for low-cost SLAM.

These datasets were collected on iRobot Creates, the Neato XV-11, and the Vanadium Armadillo using the Neato Laser or the Hokuyo URG-04LX-UG01. In particular, I've recently collected a dataset I really am looking forward to working with: the 2010-12-23-double-laser.bag dataset, which consists of a long route around the ILS lab with a Neato XV-11. I mounted a second laser on the Neato for this run, a Hokuyo URG-04LX-UG01 sensor, which is aligned with the Neato laser from above:

And a picture of the Neato with second laser:

Other SLAM Algorithms: CoreSLAM

23 Dec 2010 robots  ros  slam  gmapping is the map building (SLAM) software most commonly used in ROS. It works very well if you have a very high quality and long-range laser. The Neato laser is neither high quality nor long range (and the low-cost Hokuyos, while fairly accurate, are still near-sighted). There isn't a lot of academic literature that mentions low-cost lidars (unless it's a paper about building a low cost module).

One paper recently published that actually uses a short range Hokuyo is CoreSLAM, a SLAM implementation in under 200 lines of code. Well..., the map update/storage aspects are less than 200 lines of C code, however the complete system relies on a bit more, namely a particle filter for localization.

It looked good. So I integrated it into ROS:


This map is currently only using odometry, I'm going to try and get the MCL localization aspects working more tomorrow. I also need to get the map_saver to work with my ROS wrapper. I hope to have this on our SVN by the weekend.

Neato+ROS: Now With SLAM!

14 Dec 2010 robots  ros  slam  Here we go: I've got the Navigation stack working on a Neato XV-11:


Code is now online in the ILS Social Robotics Lab (SUNY Albany) Repository (Update: code is now on GitHub).