Map making by cooperating mobile robots

The problem of map making using cooperating multiple heterogeneous mobile robots is investigated. The mobile robots vary in size and capabilities in terms of speeds to navigate through the region and sensor ranges to acquire information about the region. The robots are assumed to have sufficient memory to store the map and to be able to communicate with each other. An algorithm is presented for map making by multiple mobile robots in a cooperative manner. The authors´ approach makes use of an occupancy grid and completes a map to a specified resolution. The algorithm is discussed in detail, and its feasibility is demonstrated by simulation results for the case of two cooperating mobile robots