Wilbur Gardening Robot log - June 27, 2025
This week I surveyed the research on learning-based methods for robot mapping, localization, and navigation. I went this direction after spending a couple weeks surveying traditional SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) approaches. There's a lot there. And then I realized, 'this is the old world. this was all made before LLMs, VLMs, and VLAs existed. I should focus on the new world'. So I switched. I think learned SLAM is the answer for Wilbur. A VLA is definitely the answer for actuation. After realizing that the evolution of traditional SLAM to learned SLAM would bring new generality, accuracy, and flexibility, I took some time to speculate about what the steady state of this research should be after all the fundamental advancements have been made. The 'Platonic Ideal' so to speak of learned SLAM. With my newfound clarity, I dove back into the research and was delighted to find that many of those ideas have been explored! So Thursday night and Friday were diving into the 'new world' of learned SLAM research, hoping to wrap that survey up by Tuesday, at which point I should have clear options in mind about what the weeding MVP robot should use. Then I'll probably narrow down possibilities and make a decision by the end of the week.