Undelayed initialization in bearing only SLAM

Abstract

Most solutions to the SLAM problem in robotics have utilised range and beating sensors as the provided perception data is easy to incorporate, allowing immediate landmark initialization. This is not the case when using bearing-only information because the distance to the perceived landmarks is not directly provided. A whole estimate of a landmark position is only possible via a set of measurements taken from different points of view. The vast majority of contributions to this problem perform a parallel task to get this estimate, and hence the landmark initialization is delayed. We give a new insight to the problem and present a method to avoid this delay by initializing the whole ray that defines the direction of the landmark. We utilize a minimal and computationally efficient form to represent this ray and a new strategy for the subsequent updates. Simulations have been carried out to validate the proposed algorithms.