[ros-users] [Discourse.ros.org] [ROS Projects] IMcoders: easy-to-install (and cheap) odometry sensors

[ruffsl]

[quote="solosito, post:8, topic:5543"]

What we are trying right now is finding out a ground truth to compare the output of our algorithm against. For that, we thought about computing a visual odometry using the robots camera (but we dont know how good it is) or using aruco markers for getting the position of the robot.



Do you think we are following the right path? What would be your proposal given our time restrictions

[/quote]



I'm not sure as to the scale or distance you'd like to test against to compare your odometry with, (are we talking like looping around a table or a building?), but usually benchmarking against a established SLAM algorithm (as opposed to a odometry method) would still be useful, like cartographer. Try and use a SLAM approach where data association of landmarks would be less of an issue, and when odometry sensing is optional for runtime. If you don't want to use a LIDAR, or can't fit one on the platform, but say only a onboard camera, you could use something like this:



https://github.com/UbiquityRobotics/fiducials





If the platform is sensor deprived, i.e. you can't tack on camera on it, you could flip the problem and go the poor-man's-motion-capture route using a fixed facing camera and a printed fiducial taped to the robot:



https://martinvb.com/wp/openvps-poor-mans-motion-capture/



I've used this april tag library before for something related in previous SLAM development and liked the packages features:



https://github.com/personalrobotics/apriltags



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1gzb32ube4



The Golem Lab at Georgia Tech used something quite like, using a six camera overhead vision system when a proper mocap system was unavailable. Just be sure to disable any autofocusing features if your using a cheap web camera or something.



https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/home-robots/you-cant-stop-robots-with-furniture-barricades-anymore











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