Robotic Total Station

Robotic Total Stations (RTSs) are increasingly used to generate highly accurate ground truth trajectories for benchmarking Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) algorithms in mobile robotics, surpassing the precision of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), especially in challenging environments. Current research focuses on improving the accuracy and efficiency of RTS-based ground truth generation, including developing novel extrinsic calibration methods to reduce setup time and uncertainty analysis techniques to quantify the impact of various noise sources on pose estimation. This improved accuracy and reliability of ground truth data significantly enhances the evaluation and development of advanced SLAM algorithms, leading to more robust and reliable autonomous systems.