An Overview on the Cooperative SLAM Problem of Multi-robot Systems Considering Communication Conditions

The communication conditions can affect the design and realization of cooperative simultaneous localization and mapping(CSLAM) algorithms directly. According to the different focuses among the assumptions on the communication conditions of multi-robot systems, the state-of-the-art research advances of multi-robot CSLAM algorithms are presented in this paper. Firstly, the characters and drawbacks of the centralized CSLAM algorithm based on fully connected communication condition are introduced. Secondly, in the situation of unknown initial correspondence of the multi-robot system, the map merging issue of distributed CSLAM algorithm based on limited communication range and bandwidth is analyzed and defined in terms of map alignment, data association and map fusion. Furthermore, some of the latest research achievements on distributed CSLAM algorithm considering sparse-dynamic communication situation are also presented. Finally, the prospect of future research in the area of multi-robot CSLAM is summarized.