Idea for allowing loop closures on multiple maps (online)

[jacksonkr]

According to this thread it sounds like loop closures will not be found when working with multiple robots in the same space.

Let's say I have 5 robots all mapping the same space. If I had a computer dedicated to processing map data and loop closures would it be possible to listen to each robot's topics to generate a single online map with loop closures? Of course all machines would be on the same wireless N network.

[matlabbe]

Hi,

Indeed, loop closures between robots cannot be detected online. There is also no mechanism to have only one rtabmap node running remotely on a master computer for more than one robot.

The only way to merge maps from different robots is assuming that they are multi-session maps from the same robot. So you could do similar to Multi-Session tutorial to find loop closures between the robots offline.

cheers

[jacksonkr]

Duly noted. In effort to find a plausible workaround I've created a question regarding ROS Master / Slave relationships over at answer.ros.org