MAPS FROM STAGE SIMULATIONS IN ROS

SLAM USING STAGE'S WANDER CONTROLLER IN ROS

SLAM, Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping; using simulations in stage/stageros  to map the environment based on sensor readings from a mobile robot in the 'wandering' mode may be done as follows;

#.1 - Start an instance of the master in a terminal window

roscore

 

#.2 - Start the stage/stageros simulation in a new terminal window 

rosrun stage stageros /path/to/.world file 

The world file employs stage controller 'wander' hence the robot starts moving immediately and is in a wandering mode. 

#.3 - Start gmapping in a new terminal window 

rosrun gmapping slam_gmapping scan:=base_scan

#.4 - Start map server in a new terminal window 

rosrun map_server map_saver 

The map will get saved in the directory from where the command for map_server is issued as a pgm file.

Run the simulation sufficiently long enough for a good map. While the simulation is running, on running rxgraph in a new terminal window one may see the following graph for the ROS nodes.

SAMPLE OUTPUTS

#.1 

#.2 

 

#.3

 
NOTE : Simulations done in ROS 1.4.9 diamondback

REFERENCES
1) I thank Mac at ROS for his suggestions
2) This blogpost went to be motivation for a ROS tutorial - http://www.ros.org/wiki/stage/Tutorials/MakingMapsUsingStagesWanderController