Local costmap obstacle drift artifacts

Question

I am trying to set up a differential drive mobile robot for SLAM and navigation.

I am using:

ros-noetic
slam_toolbox
navigation_stack 
gazebo + lidar plugin

The problem is that when the robot is doing SLAM and especially when it rotates on the Z axis, the obstacles begin to drift away blocking unoccupied spaces and interfering with the navigation_planner.

I have tried:

• increasing and decreasing update_frequency and publish_frequency in costmap_common_params;
• adding observation_persistence: 0.0 in costmap_common_params;
• adding track_unknown_space: false in costmap_local_params;

Here are my navigation stack settings:

• the parameters are adapted from husky_navigation

base_planner:

controller_frequency: 5.0
recovery_behaviour_enabled: true

NavfnROS:
  allow_unknown: true # Specifies whether or not to allow navfn to create plans that traverse unknown space.
  default_tolerance: 0.1 # A tolerance on the goal point for the planner.

TrajectoryPlannerROS:
  # Robot Configuration Parameters
  acc_lim_x: 2.5
  acc_lim_theta:  3.2

  max_vel_x: 1.0
  min_vel_x: 0.0

  max_vel_theta: 1.0
  min_vel_theta: -1.0
  min_in_place_vel_theta: 0.2

  holonomic_robot: false
  escape_vel: -0.1

  # Goal Tolerance Parameters
  yaw_goal_tolerance: 0.1
  xy_goal_tolerance: 0.2
  latch_xy_goal_tolerance: false

  # Forward Simulation Parameters
  sim_time: 2.0
  sim_granularity: 0.02
  angular_sim_granularity: 0.02
  vx_samples: 6
  vtheta_samples: 20
  controller_frequency: 20.0

  # Trajectory scoring parameters
  meter_scoring: true # Whether the gdist_scale and pdist_scale parameters should assume that goal_distance and path_distance are expressed in units of meters or cells. Cells are assumed by default (false).
  occdist_scale:  0.1 #The weighting for how much the controller should attempt to avoid obstacles. default 0.01
  pdist_scale: 0.75  #     The weighting for how much the controller should stay close to the path it was given . default 0.6
  gdist_scale: 1.0 #     The weighting for how much the controller should attempt to reach its local goal, also controls speed  default 0.8

  heading_lookahead: 0.325  #How far to look ahead in meters when scoring different in-place-rotation trajectories
  heading_scoring: false  #Whether to score based on the robot's heading to the path or its distance from the path. default false
  heading_scoring_timestep: 0.8   #How far to look ahead in time in seconds along the simulated trajectory when using heading scoring (double, default: 0.8)
  dwa: true #Whether to use the Dynamic Window Approach (DWA)_ or whether to use Trajectory Rollout
  simple_attractor: false
  publish_cost_grid_pc: true  

  # Oscillation Prevention Parameters
  oscillation_reset_dist: 0.25 #How far the robot must travel in meters before oscillation flags are reset (double, default: 0.05)
  escape_reset_dist: 0.1
  escape_reset_theta: 0.1

DWAPlannerROS:
  # Robot configuration parameters  
  acc_lim_x: 2.5
  acc_lim_y: 0
  acc_lim_th: 3.2

  max_vel_x: 0.5
  min_vel_x: 0.0
  max_vel_y: 0
  min_vel_y: 0

  max_vel_trans: 0.5
  min_vel_trans: 0.1
  max_vel_theta: 1.0
  min_vel_theta: 0.2

  # Goal Tolerance Parameters
  yaw_goal_tolerance: 0.1
  xy_goal_tolerance: 0.2
  latch_xy_goal_tolerance: false

costmap_common_params:

#footprint: [[-0.5, -0.33], [-0.5, 0.33], [0.5, 0.33], [0.5, -0.33]]
#footprint_padding: 0.01
robot_radius: 0.175

robot_base_frame: base_link
update_frequency: 4.0
publish_frequency: 3.0
transform_tolerance: 0.5

resolution: 0.05

obstacle_range: 5.5
raytrace_range: 6.0

cost_scaling_factor: 2.0

#layer definitions
static:
    map_topic: /map
    subscribe_to_updates: true

obstacles_laser:
    observation_sources: laser
    laser: {data_type: LaserScan, clearing: true, marking: true, topic: scan, inf_is_valid: true}

inflation:
    inflation_radius: 0.3

costmap_local_params:

global_frame: odom
rolling_window: true
track_unknown_space: false

plugins:
  - {name: obstacles_laser,           type: "costmap_2d::ObstacleLayer"}
  - {name: inflation,                 type: "costmap_2d::InflationLayer"}

costmap_global_params:

global_frame: map
rolling_window: false
track_unknown_space: true

plugins:
  - {name: static,                  type: "costmap_2d::StaticLayer"}
  - {name: inflation,               type: "costmap_2d::InflationLayer"}

Answer 1

The problem seems to be with the AMCL package, upload the AMCL configuration file to find what is causing the problem. The old odom_model_type parameter of AMCL can cause this activity. Try changing them to diff-corrected or omni-corrected.