A-LOAM

Advanced implementation of LOAM

A-LOAM is an Advanced implementation of LOAM (J. Zhang and S. Singh. LOAM: Lidar Odometry and Mapping in Real-time), which uses Eigen and Ceres Solver to simplify code structure. This code is modified from LOAM and LOAM_NOTED. This code is clean and simple without complicated mathematical derivation and redundant operations. It is a good learning material for SLAM beginners.

The MRS version of A-LOAM is parallelized (nodeleted) and refactored to be more readable. It also depends on some MRS-specific packages -- see below.

1. Prerequisites

The same prerequisities as for the MRS system:

• Ubuntu 64-bit 16.04, 18.04, or 20.04,
• ROS Kinetic, Melodic or Noetic (ROS Installation),
• Ceres Solver, and
• PCL.

2. Dependencies

The MRS version of A-LOAM depends on these packages:

• mrs_lib,
• ouster driver, and
• mrs_pcl_tools (optional, but recommended).

Theese packages have to be available and built in your ROS workspace.

3. Install & Build A-LOAM

Clone and install the package using the prepared script:

    cd ~/git
    git clone [email protected]:uav/perception/aloam.git
    cd aloam/install
    ./install.sh

Then link to your workspace and compile it using catkin build aloam_slam.

4. Running A-LOAM

The main launch file should be included by user in a wrapper launch file, or launched directly. Then, the user can easily change input args to change the behavior for his particular application. For example:

<launch>

  <include file="$(find aloam)/launch/aloam.launch">

    <arg name="standalone" value="false" />
    <arg name="nodelet_manager_name" value="my_nodelet_manager" />
    <arg name="custom_config" value="$(find my_package)/custom_configs/aloam.yaml" />
    <arg name="debug" value="false" />
    <arg name="points_topic" value="/my_senser/point_cloud" />

  </include>

</launch>

6.Acknowledgements

Thanks for LOAM(J. Zhang and S. Singh. LOAM: Lidar Odometry and Mapping in Real-time) and LOAM_NOTED.