How to Make an Autonomous Mapping Robot Using SLAM

This video explains the basics of SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping), how a LIDAR sensor works, frontier exploration, pathfinding, pure pursuit, obstacle avoidance, and Monte Carlo localization. This project was part of my RBE 3002 class, more details can be found at: kainakamura.com/project/rbe3002.
0:00 What is SLAM?
0:44 Implementing SLAM
1:44 Frontier Exploration
2:31 Pathfinding
3:07 Pure Pursuit
4:10 Obstacle Avoidance
4:26 Monte Carlo Localization
5:08 Outro and Mapping Videos

[@tejasgudi1169]

You explained it better in just 5mins what my college was not able to teach me in one semester.

[@circleofowls]

This is the best overview of SLAM that I've seen yet. Excellent presentation and just enough detail to get people started. I'd love to see a deep dive on getting ROS setup on a small rover like this.

[@user-tz7xl6fj4e]

me too i also want to go through nav2 package from scratch

[@ArnaudMEURET]

Me too! Although it’s meaningless because it’s the first one. Data needs context. 😅

[@TNERA]

Super! That is a nice easy explanation of SLAM. Well done!

[@24-dinitrophenylhydrazine29]

insanely easy to understand! thank you sir

[@user-re2ih8ur3f]

one video on mapping please

[@maestromx19m40]

Can you make a video about mapping

[@feelfreetofee]

♥♥♥

[@salh2665]

❤❤❤❤

[@cdslseoultech4967]

Hi Mr. Kai Nakamura, could you please tell me where you are able to get the walls for the arena? Is it custom or you buy it from online store? I have a project that needs such wall. Thank you in advance

[@kaihnakamura]

I just contacted my professor and they told me the walls are custom made from rectangular thin plywood sheets and 3D printed parts. The curved walls are made by laser cutting a zig-zag pattern into the plywood, allowing it to bend. If you're interested in creating your own I could probably contact the lab staff and get the files needed to reproduce them if you're interested. Hope this helps!

[@ClickingKeys]

I’m interested in creating an outdoor rover. In your opinion, would lidar work for accurate positioning in an outdoor environment, like a yard?

[@kaihnakamura]

It's hard to say for sure if LIDAR would work well in an outdoor environment for your needs. One thing to keep in mind for the robot I used is that it only makes LIDAR scans parallel to the ground. This worked find for my needs because the only obstacles were the walls. But if the environment were full of obstacles shorter than the LIDAR sensor, then the robot would be unable to detect them. There are 3D LIDAR sensors that allow you to create point clouds in 3D, but these can be quite expensive. Some SLAM robots use a 2D LIDAR scanner in combination with a stereo camera to achieve the same effect. The robot in the video is a TurtleBot3, but I know the TurtleBot4 uses the LIDAR and camera approach. Hope this helps! turtlebot.github.io/turtlebot4-user-manual/overview/features.html

[@ClickingKeys]

@@kaihnakamura I really appreciate your thoughts and input. I was considering using GPS, but realized I would need RTK to make it accurate enough and that’s a bit more expensive than I was hoping for.

[@user-bo5nb8jv4l]

Wow, really outstanding results! How many people were on this project and how long it took you to accomplish it? Are you planning to release the code for this project? Again, thank you for sharing!

[@kaihnakamura]

Three people over the course of a seven week term. Unfortunately, I cannot share the code in its entirety due to academic policy (students next year would just be able to copy it). But I could share code snippets or point toward resources with some of the algorithms I used if you’re interested. Thank you so much for your interest in this project! :)

[@user-tz7xl6fj4e]

can u share me as well

[@user-bo5nb8jv4l]

@@kaihnakamura Yeah, it would be awesome! If you could share info about the hardest points, not in a code, but maybe as a theory, methodology or something similar. It could help others and i think will be a interesting material for your blog!

[@ianwhaples3837]

sometime in the future, would it be able to detect changes in the environment? where an obstruction has been added or a wall moved so that it can update it's map?

[@kaihnakamura]

Currently, the robot is using the gmapping ROS package to map the environment which only works for static environments. However, there are other SLAM implementations in ROS that allow for dynamic maps such as slam_toolbox. gmapping: wiki.ros.org/gmapping slam_toolbox: github.com/SteveMacenski/slam_toolbox#lifelong-mapping

[@ianwhaples3837]

Cool, I gotta say this is a very well made video, I’m surprised at how small the Chanel is and I hope to see it grow.

[@kaihnakamura]

Thank you so much! :)

[@bobodude6152]

Can i know what model of LiDar sensor did you use

[@kaihnakamura]

It's an LDS-01 on top of a TurtleBot3: emanual.robotis.com/docs/en/platform/turtlebot3/appendix_lds_01/