A robust RGB-D SLAM algorithm

Recently RGB-D sensors have become very popular in the area of Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping (SLAM). The major advantage of these sensors is that they provide a rich source of 3D information at relatively low cost. Unfortunately, these sensors in their current forms only have a range accuracy of up to 4 metres. Many techniques which perform SLAM using RGB-D cameras rely heavily on the depth and are restrained to office type and geometrically structured environments. In this paper, a switching based algorithm is proposed to heuristically choose between RGB-BA and RGBD-BA based local maps building. Furthermore, a low cost and consistent optimisation approach is used to join these maps. Thus the potential of both RGB and depth image information are exploited to perform robust SLAM in more general indoor cases. Validation of the proposed algorithm is performed by mapping a large scale indoor scene where traditional RGB-D mapping techniques are not possible. © 2012 IEEE