Robotics: Science and Systems XI

Exploiting the Separable Structure of SLAM

Kasra Khosoussi, Shoudong Huang, Gamini Dissanayake

Abstract:

In this paper we point out an overlooked structure of SLAM that distinguishes it from a generic nonlinear least squares problem. The measurement function in most common forms of SLAM is linear with respect to robot and features positions. Therefore, given an estimate for robot orientation, the conditionally optimal estimate for the rest of state variables can be easily obtained by solving a sparse linear-Gaussian estimation problem. We propose an algorithm to exploit this intrinsic property of SLAM by stripping the problem down to its nonlinear core, while maintaining its natural sparsity. Our algorithm can be used together with any Newton-based iterative solver and is applicable to 2D/3D pose-graph and feature-based problems. Our results suggest that iteratively solving the nonlinear core of SLAM leads to a fast and reliable convergence as compared to the state-of-the-art back-ends.

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Bibtex:

  
@INPROCEEDINGS{Khosoussi-RSS-15, 
    AUTHOR    = {Kasra Khosoussi AND Shoudong Huang AND Gamini Dissanayake}, 
    TITLE     = {Exploiting the Separable Structure of SLAM}, 
    BOOKTITLE = {Proceedings of Robotics: Science and Systems}, 
    YEAR      = {2015}, 
    ADDRESS   = {Rome, Italy}, 
    MONTH     = {July},
    DOI       = {10.15607/RSS.2015.XI.023} 
}