Starting work on clean-and-map: online coverage-while-mapping

[yugeeklab]

Hi! I'd like to work on the coverage-while-mapping part of the Clean & Map RFC.

My initial goal is to reproduce the current OOMWOO Gazebo, SLAM, navigation, and coverage setup, then work on an implementation that combines coverage cleaning with frontier-based exploration while the map is still being built.

The main question I want to explore is how the robot should alternate between:

• covering currently known but uncleaned free space, and
• exploring frontiers to discover new reachable space.

As a first baseline, I'm planning to compare:

1. explore first, then clean,
2. a simple alternating frontier/coverage approach, and
3. an online coverage-while-mapping approach.

I'd also like to use the existing simulation/regression infrastructure to evaluate things like coverage, map completeness, travel distance, and completion time.

I saw the previous Clean & Map discussions and implementation attempts, so I'll try to focus specifically on the still-open online coverage / exploration integration rather than duplicating the existing reactive cleaning work.

I'll post progress and implementation details here as I go. Feedback on the scope or suggested starting points would be very welcome!

[makers-pet]

Hi @yugeeklab , sounds great! Thank you for volunteering.

How the robot should alternate between covering and exploring.

• I'd recommend cleaning as highest priority.
• Why? When I purchase a (consumer) robot, unpack it, set it up and start cleaning - I expect the robot to clean. I'm watching eagerly, forming a first impression. If the robot does anything else but cleaning - I get a bad impression, think it's defective, leave a negative review.

I got a new vacuum cleaner today. My wife watched it clean for the first time. The vacuum kept doing frontier exploration, but little cleaning. My wife said something like "What is it doing? It's not cleaning!"