SLAM_toolbox automaticly dectect initial pose

Hi all,

I would like to know if someone knows a way to detect automaticly the initial position of a robot when starting the slam node in localization mode before making any movement, like by just trying to match the current laser scan datas to the current saved map ?

As far as I know, when the position is not initialized it should converge to its actual position but takes time for it, even more when the initial pose of of the robot is far from its real position. Is there kind of an indicator returned from the package that express the error between current scan and saved map ?

I'll be happy to develop a tool in order to get this functionality if it doesn't exist yet, but any help on this would be apreciate ! Thanks in advance.

Asked by gregscf on 2023-02-03 11:05:53 UTC

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Answers

There is zero expectation with SLAM Toolbox that when using the localization mode you don't have a pretty good estimate of your initial pose in the first place. It is not a filter approach and was not designed for that (e.g. it was meant for professional applications with tuned platforms in deployed settings where you can persist information like last known pose when at a dock or something).

I don't know if you meant that package specifically, but you tagged that and didn't mention a particular approach in your question.

A particle filter approach may or may not do that, depending on the specific package in question -- but most will deal with the global localization problem.

W.r.t. work on matching current data to a map: check literature. There must be thousands of papers on that subject.

Asked by stevemacenski on 2023-02-03 13:56:41 UTC

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Thank you for your answer. I am currently using slam_toolbox for mapping and localization but I was just wondering if someone have had the same case as myself when a robot can start at any position in it's map and needed to automaticly find its position.

So if I understand well, the position would not converge to its real position if it is not initialize using the slam_toolbox package ?

I thought the package implemented also a particule filter but I'll try to add one myself. Thanks again for the leads I'll investigate.

Asked by gregscf on 2023-02-06 19:25:18 UTC

You should use another localization algorithm then

Asked by stevemacenski on 2023-02-06 22:20:53 UTC