[ros-users] Navigation Stack performance

Hi everyone!

Here at the lab we use Roomba robots with Eee PCs on top. The Eee PCs have a
single core Intel Atom processor, not the quickest thing around! Each Roomba
is also equiped with an Hokuyo laser.

So I've recently been playing around with the ROS nav stack. I've tried to
make it as simple as possible according to the various tutorials and mailing
list msgs I've came across with, however I'm always getting a warning that
it is running below the 20Hz frequency. It is also noticeable the fact that
the robot does not move properly, and eventually crashes.

Previously I experimented the same setup on an Erratic robot with a Celeron,
and although it was taking pretty much all of the processor to run the nav
stack, it was able to move pretty well around the lab according to the
commands I was issuing from rviz.

So my question is, how can I use the nav stack in its simplest form, in
order to have it running smoothly on the Eee PCs?

I'm attaching the .yaml files I'm using for configuring the nav stack.

Thanks in advance!

Gonçalo Cabrita