How to use Velodyne VLP-16 (Puck) lidar to realize gmapping or Cartographer demo without using carter robot

Autonomous Machines Robotics - Isaac Isaac SDK
1

I hope to use isaac sdk and lidar to realize gmapping or Cartographer demo. But I found that carter robots are needed in the demo. How can I modify the json to complete the mapping using Velodyne VLP-16?

2

Hi, @Huanlddz,

Thanks for trying Isaac SDK. Both GMapping and Cartographer are provided as codelet: https://docs.nvidia.com/isaac/isaac/doc/doc/component_api.html#isaac-lidar-slam-gmapping
To make them function you need lidar scan fed into flatscan channel, and odometry.
For GMapping this could be fed as Odometry2Proto into odometry channel. For Cartographer the odometry needs to be provided via pose tree. The document link above would have more details.

Regards

3

I was wondering if you guys would implement HECTOR SLAM as codelets for mapping ?

4

You have to write your own C++ or Python codelet that spoofs odometry data and sends it to proper listening channel. This would give you just a live feed from lidar(localMap component -if not mistaken) - no mapping. For Gmapping or Cartographer not sure if you can spoof odometry - tecnically you can, but not sure how your reliable your map would be.