Simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) consists in the concurrent construction of a model of the environment (the map ), and the estimation of the state of the robot moving within it. The SLAM community has made astonishing progress over the last 30 years, enabling large-scale real-world applications and witnessing a steady transition of this technology to industry. We survey the current state of SLAM and consider future directions. We start by presenting what is now the de-facto standard formulation for SLAM. We then review related work, covering a broad set of topics including robustness and scalability in long-term mapping, metric and semantic representations for mapping, theoretical performance guarantees, active SLAM and exploration, and other new frontiers. This paper simultaneously serves as a position paper and tutorial to those who are users of SLAM. By looking at the published research with a critical eye, we delineate open challenges and new research issues, that still deserve careful scientific investigation. The paper also contains the authors’ take on two questions that often animate discussions during robotics conferences: Do robots need SLAM? and Is SLAM solved?

/pdf/past-present-and-future-of-simultaneous-localization-and-27i1pn9khc.pdf

Past, Present, and Future of Simultaneous Localization and Mapping: Toward the Robust-Perception Age

Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM)consists in the concurrent construction of a model of the environment (the map), and the estimation of the state of the robot moving within it. The SLAM community has made astonishing progress over the last 30 years, enabling large-scale real-world applications, and witnessing a steady transition of this technology to industry. We survey the current state of SLAM. We start by presenting what is now the de-facto standard formulation for SLAM. We then review related work, covering a broad set of topics including robustness and scalability in long-term mapping, metric and semantic representations for mapping, theoretical performance guarantees, active SLAM and exploration, and other new frontiers. This paper simultaneously serves as a position paper and tutorial to those who are users of SLAM. By looking at the published research with a critical eye, we delineate open challenges and new research issues, that still deserve careful scientific investigation. The paper also contains the authors' take on two questions that often animate discussions during robotics conferences: Do robots need SLAM? and Is SLAM solved?

/pdf/past-present-and-future-of-simultaneous-localization-and-dhljw0akg5.pdf

Past, Present, and Future of Simultaneous Localization And Mapping: Towards the Robust-Perception Age

A survey on coverage path planning for robotics

Autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) navigation and localization in underwater environments is particularly challenging due to the rapid attenuation of Global Positioning System (GPS) and radio-frequency signals. Underwater communications are low bandwidth and unreliable, and there is no access to a global positioning system. Past approaches to solve the AUV localization problem have employed expensive inertial sensors, used installed beacons in the region of interest, or required periodic surfacing of the AUV. While these methods are useful, their performance is fundamentally limited. Advances in underwater communications and the application of simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) technology to the underwater realm have yielded new possibilities in the field. This paper presents a review of the state of the art of AUV navigation and localization, as well as a description of some of the more commonly used methods. In addition, we highlight areas of future research potential.

/pdf/auv-navigation-and-localization-a-review-2aaowbjv0i.pdf

AUV Navigation and Localization: A Review

Digital twin can be defined as a virtual representation of a physical asset enabled through data and simulators for real-time prediction, optimization, monitoring, controlling, and improved decision making. Recent advances in computational pipelines, multiphysics solvers, artificial intelligence, big data cybernetics, data processing and management tools bring the promise of digital twins and their impact on society closer to reality. Digital twinning is now an important and emerging trend in many applications. Also referred to as a computational megamodel, device shadow, mirrored system, avatar or a synchronized virtual prototype, there can be no doubt that a digital twin plays a transformative role not only in how we design and operate cyber-physical intelligent systems, but also in how we advance the modularity of multi-disciplinary systems to tackle fundamental barriers not addressed by the current, evolutionary modeling practices. In this work, we review the recent status of methodologies and techniques related to the construction of digital twins mostly from a modeling perspective. Our aim is to provide a detailed coverage of the current challenges and enabling technologies along with recommendations and reflections for various stakeholders.

/pdf/digital-twin-values-challenges-and-enablers-from-a-modeling-3hpoelaogn.pdf

Digital Twin: Values, Challenges and Enablers From a Modeling Perspective

Simultaneous localization and mapping SLAM in unknown GPS-denied environments is a major challenge for researchers in the field of mobile robotics. Many solutions for single-robot SLAM exist; however, moving to a platform of multiple robots adds many challenges to the existing problems. This paper reviews state-of-the-art multiple-robot systems, with a major focus on multiple-robot SLAM. Various issues and problems in multiple-robot SLAM are introduced, current solutions for these problems are reviewed, and their advantages and disadvantages are discussed.

/pdf/multiple-robot-simultaneous-localization-and-mapping-a-qeqtr8xeje.pdf

Multiple-Robot Simultaneous Localization and Mapping: A Review

A novel domestic electric water heater model for a multi-objective demand side management program

At present, autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) mine countermeasure (MCM) surveys are normally preplanned by operators using ladder or zig-zag paths. Such surveys are conducted with side-looking sonar sensors whose performance is dependent on environmental, target, sensor, and AUV platform parameters. It is difficult to obtain precise knowledge of all of these parameters to be able to design optimal mission plans offline. This research represents the first known sensor driven online approach to seabed coverage for MCM. A method is presented where paths are planned using a multiobjective optimization. Information theory is combined with a new concept coined branch entropy based on a hexagonal cell decomposition. The result is a planning algorithm that not only produces shorter paths than conventional means, but is also capable of accounting for environmental factors detected in situ. Hardware-in-the-loop simulations and in water trials conducted on the IVER2 AUV show the effectiveness of the proposed method.

http://people.csail.mit.edu/lpaull/publications/Paull_TMECH_2012.pdf

Sensor-Driven Online Coverage Planning for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles

This article discusses a newly formed IEEE-RAS working group entitled Ontologies for Robotics and Automation (ORA). The goal of this working group is to develop a standard ontology and associated methodology for knowledge representation and reasoning in robotics and automation, together with the representation of concepts in an initial set of application domains. The standard provides a unified way of representing knowledge and provides a common set of terms and definitions, allowing for unambiguous knowledge transfer among any group of humans, robots, and other artificial systems. In addition to describing the goal and structure of the group, this article gives some examples of how the ontology, once developed, can be used by applications such as industrial kitting.

/pdf/an-ieee-standard-ontology-for-robotics-and-automation-1s8akdz6sf.pdf

Howard Li

Papers

AUV Navigation and Localization: A Review

Multiple-Robot Simultaneous Localization and Mapping: A Review

A novel domestic electric water heater model for a multi-objective demand side management program

Sensor-Driven Online Coverage Planning for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles

An IEEE standard Ontology for Robotics and Automation