Image-based mapping and navigation with heterogenous robots

We present a system that enables multiple heterogenous mobile robots to build and share an appearance based map appropriate for indoor navigation using exclusively monocular vision. Robots incrementally create online an appearance based model based on SIFT descriptors. The spatial model is enriched with additional information so that the map can be used for navigation also by robots different from those that built it. Once the map is available, navigation is performed using an approach based on epipolar geometry. The control mechanism builds upon the unicycle kinematic model, and assumes robots are equipped with a servoed camera. The validity of the proposed approach is substantiated both in simulation and on an heterogeneous multirobot system.