Long-term simultaneous localization and mapping with generic linear constraint node removal

This paper reports on the use of generic linear constraint (GLC) node removal as a method to control the computational complexity of long-term simultaneous localization and mapping. We experimentally demonstrate that GLC provides a principled and flexible tool enabling a wide variety of complexity management schemes. Specifically, we consider two main classes: batch multi-session node removal, in which nodes are removed in a batch operation between mapping sessions, and online node removal, in which nodes are removed as the robot operates. Results are shown for 34.9 h of real-world indoor-outdoor data covering 147.4 km collected over 27 mapping sessions spanning a period of 15 months.