RTABMAP for swarm SLAM

[Gi_T]

Hey Mathieu,

I previously used RTABMAP successfully for 3d lidar indoor mapping (http://official-rtab-map-forum.206.s1.nabble.com/Lidar-based-3d-SLAM-in-sparse-feature-environment-td10174.html) which I would now like to extend/repurpose for outdoor. Furthermore I want to explore mapping a large area with multiple drones and wanted to ask what options are available for this in RTABMAP. I know that it's possible to do multi session mapping for stitching individual maps together (https://github.com/introlab/rtabmap/wiki/Multi-Session-Mapping-with-RTAB-Map-Tango) but is there also functionality for live multi-agent SLAM?

What I would probably need for my project is the possibility for all drones to share the same reference frame and if possible periodically transmit their maps to the other drones (I'm currently planning on using a long range mesh network with a high datarate so periodic transmission should be possible). Do you have any suggestions.

Cheers,
Gilbert

[matlabbe]

Hi Gilbert,

As you said, we can assemble maps from multiple robots in rtabmap but we cannot do it online. You may look at this project https://github.com/MISTLab/Swarm-SLAM, which seems to do what you are describing.

Otherwise, you may search for projects/papers related to DARPA SubT Challenge, some teams may have used some open source projects to do it (you may read some of their papers by searching on Google Scholar).

Regards,
Mathieu