Data association

Search IconIcon to open search

Source: SLAM for Dummies

Matching observed landmarks from different scans (different time steps) with each other. Also called ’re-observing' landmarks.

Problems that can arise

  • The landmark(s) might not be observed every time step (bad landmark)
  • Something might be observed as a landmark, but it never appears again (bad landmark)
  • Wrong association of a landmark to a previously seen landmark

Goal

Define a suitable data-association policy to minimise the first two problems

  • Given: database that stores previously seen landmarks (initially empty)
  • As a rule: a landmark is only considered worthwhile to be used in SLAM once it is seen N times

Data association policies

e.g. Nearest Neighbour