Wifi Mapping over 2D SLAM
I am completely new to ROS. Without a massive amount of reading mostly in the wrong directions, down rabbit holes, I want to distill the essential details of how to solve this problem below.
Create a 2D indoor map using LIDAR of a building in realtime as per many examples on youtube.
Create on that 2D generated map another coloured heatmap of a Wifi signal from wifi access point(s)
Neither of these problems are new science both have been individually achieved in this or other domains. But it seems to be exponentially difficult to find out what packages are required and how they interact in ROS. I would like to build over a 2D generated map, a heatmap of RSSI signal from a given BSSID. I am not sure where to start. The weakest link is the Wifi mapping part. I have loaded up kinetic, the one heatmap program I found is for jade I now discover. I have no idea where to start or how to decompose this in ROS due to its messaging mechanisms and many sub component libraries and apps. I could start on the 2D mapper but that seems a well worn path with many examples. It appears there are many libraries that are combined to move a robot, I have at this point no desire to move any robot just the 2D mapping and heatmap only, so I cannot figure out what subject matter is noise related to robot movement topics and what is not. Can anyone point me in the right direction? Like use this package, ignore these components you only need this or that? It would be much appreciated.
I suggest to split your questions into two separate ones while providing more details, e.g. what robot type you want to use, what 3d sensor... Also you should start with only the first one, probably by using the navigation stack.
I experienced the same struggles getting started with ROS. Just keep reading and trying, eventually you will understand. It may take some time to understand the concepts of ROS (at least I experienced it that way)
@Humpelstilzchen's suggestion is a good one: if 'creating a 2D indoor map' is really one of your functional requirements, then focus on that first. Preferably use whatever is already there.
This confuses me.
Is a robot going to be involved at some point? If not, then that is a different approach, but can still work.
If you are going to be using a robot, then just use a simulation to get a feel for how things are 'normally' done, then adapt to what you need.
Try the turtlebot (2) tutorials fi.
Thanks for your reply. There is no robot at this point, so no motor to control. Its just me with a laptop probably on a trolley. The LIDAR will map as I push around the trolley at walking pace.
Since the wifi component is the least documented and in the critical path of the project its needs looking at first. Does anyone have any idea how to do this or port ROS Heatmap from Jade to Kinetic to test?
re: wifi component: I get why you feel that way, but I don't agree. You're going to have to map anyway, even if you need to add the wifi mapping yourself. I would really recommend getting some experience with mapping first.
re: porting: there is typically very little 'porting' involved with the ..
.. latest ROS releases. Just clone the pkg in a catkin ws, install dependencies and run
catkin buildto see if it works. If it builds, you're happy. If not, it'll need some fixing.See #q252478 for an overview of the 'building pkg from source' steps.