PSO-FastSLAM: An improved FastSLAM framework using particle swarm optimization

FastSLAM is a framework which solves the problem of simultaneous localization and mapping using a Rao-Blackwellized particle filter. Conventional FastSLAM is known to degenerate over time in terms of accuracy due to the particle depletion in resampling phase. In this work, a new FastSLAM framework is proposed to prevent the degeneracy by particle cooperation. First, after resampling phase, a target that represents an estimated robot position is computed using the positions of particles. Then, particle swarm optimization is performed to update the robot position by means of particle cooperation. Computer simulations revealed that the proposed framework shows lower RMS error in both robot and feature positions than conventional FastSLAM.