Implementation of SLAM, Navigation, Obstacle Avoidance, and Path Planning of a Robust Mobile Robot Using 2D Laser Scanner

Over the last decade, navigation and Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) have become key players in developing robust mobile robots. Several SLAM approaches utilizing camera, laser scan, sonar and fusion of sensors were developed and improved by a number of researchers. In this thesis, comparisons of these methods were evaluated, especially those offering low cost benefits, and low computation and memory consumption. The aim of this thesis was to select the most reliable and cost-efficient approach for indoor autonomous robotic applications. Currently, there are numerous studies that have optimized these SLAM methods; however, they still suffer from various complications such as scale drifting and excessive computation. This study performed different experiments to observe these challenges in realworld environments. A modified Pioneer robot was used to implement the selected SLAM system and furthermore, perform obstacle avoidance and path planning in indoor office environments. The results and tests show the reliable performance of Gmapping after tuning its parameter and set right configurations.