Map building without odometry information

Abstract

The map building methods usually employed by mobile robots are based on the assumption that an estimate of the position of the robot can be obtained from odometry readings. In this paper we propose three methods that build a geometrical global map by integrating partial maps without using any odometry information. We focus on the problem of integrating a sequence of partial maps that specifies the order in which the partial maps must be integrated. Experimental results show the effectiveness of our approach in different types of environments.