Mehul Nariyawala explains why most indoor service robots fail outside their charging dock. They map space relative to the dock only, so they can't navigate if they start anywhere else. His approach builds an absolute visual map of the whole environment, letting robots work from any starting point.
Cool. And that was actually one of the critical parts that a lot of these indoor robots, when they build a map, they build a map starting from where the dock is. Those maps are relative. They only— so robot only knows where it is from where the dock is. That's like coming to your home and saying, I can only navigate my home if I come through front door. But if I came through side door or back door, I don't know. Versus what we do is build a full-blown visual absolute map. That means you can move around your dock, you can move around everything, and it just figures it out.
