Configuration

Note that Cartographer’s ROS integration uses tf2, thus all frame IDs are expected to contain only a frame name (lower-case with underscores) and no prefix or slashes. See REP 105 for commonly used coordinate frames.

Note that topic names are given as base names (see ROS Names) in Cartographer’s ROS integration. This means it is up to the user of the Cartographer node to remap, or put them into a namespace.

The following are Cartographer’s ROS integration top-level options, all of which must be specified in the Lua configuration file:

map_frame
The ROS frame ID to use for publishing submaps, the parent frame of poses, usually “map”.
tracking_frame
The ROS frame ID of the frame that is tracked by the SLAM algorithm. If an IMU is used, it should be at its position, although it might be rotated. A common choice is “imu_link”.
published_frame
The ROS frame ID to use as the child frame for publishing poses. For example “odom” if an “odom” frame is supplied by a different part of the system. In this case the pose of “odom” in the map_frame will be published. Otherwise, setting it to “base_link” is likely appropriate.
odom_frame
Only used if provide_odom_frame is true. The frame between published_frame and map_frame to be used for publishing the (non-loop-closed) local SLAM result. Usually “odom”.
provide_odom_frame
If enabled, the local, non-loop-closed, continuous pose will be published as the odom_frame in the map_frame.
use_odometry
If enabled, subscribes to nav_msgs/Odometry on the topic “odom”. Odometry must be provided in this case, and the information will be included in SLAM.
num_laser_scans
Number of laser scan topics to subscribe to. Subscribes to sensor_msgs/LaserScan on the “scan” topic for one laser scanner, or topics “scan_1”, “scan_2”, etc. for multiple laser scanners.
num_multi_echo_laser_scans
Number of multi-echo laser scan topics to subscribe to. Subscribes to sensor_msgs/MultiEchoLaserScan on the “echoes” topic for one laser scanner, or topics “echoes_1”, “echoes_2”, etc. for multiple laser scanners.
num_subdivisions_per_laser_scan
Number of point clouds to split each received (multi-echo) laser scan into. Subdividing a scan makes it possible to unwarp scans acquired while the scanners are moving. There is a corresponding trajectory builder option to accumulate the subdivided scans into a point cloud that will be used for scan matching.
num_point_clouds
Number of point cloud topics to subscribe to. Subscribes to sensor_msgs/PointCloud2 on the “points2” topic for one rangefinder, or topics “points2_1”, “points2_2”, etc. for multiple rangefinders.
lookup_transform_timeout_sec
Timeout in seconds to use for looking up transforms using tf2.
submap_publish_period_sec
Interval in seconds at which to publish the submap poses, e.g. 0.3 seconds.
pose_publish_period_sec
Interval in seconds at which to publish poses, e.g. 5e-3 for a frequency of 200 Hz.
trajectory_publish_period_sec
Interval in seconds at which to publish the trajectory markers, e.g. 30e-3 for 30 milliseconds.