Building a SLAM capable heterogeneous multi-robot system with a Kinect sensor

Robotic systems have changed and evolved dramatically over the last decades. However, old and modern robots continue to co-exist in research laboratories worldwide. Outdated robots lack sufficient computing power, and need an improvement of their hardware and software capabilities. How to achieve that with minimal costs is a matter of concern of robotics researchers and practitioners. The main contribution of this paper is that it presents a concept solution and the first practical results for developing a SLAM (simultaneous localization and mapping) capable heterogeneous multi-robot system by using existing robots from multiple generations, adding new hardware such as a Kinect sensor and using open-source software.