Information Exchange in Multi-rover SLAM

We investigate simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) involving multiple robots through collaborations. In particular, we assume that robots may communicate to each other when in communication range. Several scenarios are considered: (i) robots fully able to communicate while conducting SLAM; (ii) robot communications are intermittent due to each robot having a limited but equal communication range; (iii) communications among robots are asymmetrical in that some robots may have a larger communication range than other robots. In this paper, we develop a model for multi-robot SLAM and include mechanisms for information exchange. We also provide performance comparisons for various cases of multi-robot and single-robot SLAM based on algorithms we develop to incorporate exchanged information.