Large-scale multi-robot mapping in MAGIC 2010

Abstract

We describe a large-scale decentralised multi-robot mapping system that outputs globally optimised metric maps in real-time. The mapping system was used by team WAMbot in the finals of the Multi-Autonomous Ground-robotics International Challenge (MAGIC 2010). Research contributions include a novel large-scale multi-robot graph-based non-linear map optimisation approach, a hybrid decentralised and distributed mapping system and novel graphics processing unit (GPU) based approaches for accelerating intensive map matching and fusion operations. Our mapping system scales linearly with map size and on commodity hardware can easily map a 500m×500m urban area. We demonstrate robust, highly efficient and accurate mapping results from two different fleets of mobile robots. Videos, maps and timing results from the MAGIC 2010 challenge are presented.