Introduction

This repository is part of OmniCar project and represents core part of the platform that runs ORB-SLAM2 and share data between microcontroller and remote GUI.

The program was tested on Ubuntu 20.10

Showcase

Raspberry Pi 4 Model B runs code of this repository and placed on the 2nd floor of the mobile platform.

Structure

This project can be described as ORB-SLAM2 + communication module. This communication module presented in a form of OmniCarTransceiver class. It communicates with Arduino MEGA via UART in half-duplex mode and remote GUI via UPD and TCP protocols.

Prerequisites

This project was created as modification of ORB-SLAM2, so you need to install the following libraries first:

• Pangolin - visualization and user interface. In OmniCar project it is not needed as it has own remote GUI for visualization, but I decided to save full ORB-SLAM2 project functionality so you can just toggle vanila ORB-SLAM2/platform functionality by boolean in System class constructor (false == platform mode).
• Eigen3 - linear algebra library required by g2o (note: you need to sudo make install it).
• OpenCV - computer vision library to manipulate images and features. Latest version would be fine (note: this guide would be helpful).

Building

Just as ORB-SLAM2, the project has build.sh file that will do the following:

• build DBoW2,
• build g2o,
• uncompress ORB vocabulary,
• build ORB-SLAM2,
• convert ORB vocabulary from text to binary format (speeds up program launch).

Execute:

cd OmniCar-gui
chmod +x build.sh
./build.sh