Re: implementing rtabmap_drone_example in real drone

Posted by matlabbe on
URL: http://official-rtab-map-forum.206.s1.nabble.com/implementing-rtabmap-drone-example-in-real-drone-tp10688p10807.html

6 fps feels too slow, I am not sure the px4 EKF will be able to appropriately fuse vision data, in particular if latency/delay is high. Consider using a VIO approach like msckf_vio designed for drones.

For ROS and RPI3, take a look at this link.

You can check rtabmap’s odom rate with rostopic hz and ristopic delay on /rtabmap/odom topic.

I would not say impossible, I saw rtabmap working on very small drones with Qualcomm chip (drone flight it was called if I remember), but VIO was computed by some closed-source approach (I think the rate was around 20 Hz). Rtabmap was used only as the slam backend ( loop closure and map management).

If the frame rate is dropping to 1 or 2 hz but processing time is still under 200 ms, there could be input camera framerate issue. You may check the rate of all camera topics at the same time to know where the rate drop is coming from.

For remote mapping, it could be possible to to slam back end on remote, but I would recommend to do the front end ( vo or VIO) onboard to limit the delays.