An FPGA-based real-time simultaneous localization and mapping system

Simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) is a key algorithm in localization tasks. Considering the limited payload and power on mobile robots, FPGA-based SLAM is a promising onboard solution. This paper presents an FPGA-based SLAM system, which can recover the indoor moving trajectory of the stereo cameras in real-time. We propose a low computational complexity VO-SLAM (Visual Odometry based SLAM) algorithm, and implement the algorithm on a matrix processor based on DE3 develop board. Dedicated matrix accelerators are designed to support application requirements, and a hierarchical matrix computing mechanism is proposed. The algorithm accuracy in the real scenario test is comparable to more complex EKF-SLAM algorithm. Onboard experiments demonstrate the system achieves a processing speed of 31 fps with 30000 features in the global map, which outperforms designs in other publications. We compare the onboard implementation with Intel i7 and achieve 10× energy saving for each frame.