Occupancy Grid Map for a Multi-Robot System Using LiDAR

The multi-robot system is employed to map the different parts of the indoor environment because it maps more quickly than a single robot. Two robots are used in the multi-robot system, each robot is equipped with 2D LIDAR and made to drive in an environment to develop occupancy grid maps. However, the main challenge in multi-robot mapping is to combine the occupancy grid map data from various robots into a single global map. Numerous studies have been conducted on ways to estimate the relative robot poses before or during the mapping process in multi-robot mapping. However, with map merging, the robots create local occupancy grid maps on their own without being aware of how they relate to one another. The next step is to find points where the local maps overlap to combine them. After finding the overlap between the two maps, the merging algorithm is implemented to combine the maps. Results from experiments with two robots are presented. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.