You want the map to be big enough to represent the entire house area at the resolution you want. A 1 meter resolution is probably too big - maybe between 10 and 50 centimeters would be a good range to experiment in.

You can use your 2D pose histogram data very easily with wander -- make the velocity in the else clause not a random number, but directly proportional to the value in the histogram at the robot's location. Thus: faster where it has been before and slower otherwise. Make sure the 'cap' the value however, or you may get overly fast speeds.

You can use the wall histogram array, which is pretty close to a 2D floor map, in several ways: E.g., 1) Find 'breaks' in the wall area enclosing the current position of the robot and move towards the center of the break, 2) Find the close wall, move towards it and follow it around.

These are just some ideas - you can also invent new ones.

However, you have to be objective about your evaluation of a strategy. Lets say that our strategy is to run the program for 5 minutes and then ask the map server to store the map. You should do this 3 or 4 times now for the basic wander program, so you have some 'base' examples to compare your ideas to. For consistency, always move the robot to the same start location and the same angle before you run a test.

Implement the simplest of the ideas for improving coverage, e.g., the pose histogram one. Debug thoroughly of course to make sure it is working before you test it. Then run it 3 or 4 times and ask map_server to store the maps. Visually compare each of the wander maps with each of the new maps: are they all more complete, are some better, are they different in some other way?

Perhaps break up the task, so you can test a few simple ideas like this and report back next week. Lets discuss how the ideas worked, and how you did your map comparisons.

For you presentation you will need to show some videos and some images. Even though you are still working on your main result, you should spend some time (perhaps delegate team members) to 1) 10s to 20s recordings of wander in gazebo house model, and other models if you want 2) same length screen recordings of RViz showing the laser output 3) same length recordings of gmapping while the robot is wandering

I suggest start now since this is a standalone task that someone could do to help the team and become proficient at using the screen recording function to generate short visually attractive video clips. Its tougher to do, but you can also use the Gazebo interface to perform panning or zooming during the video to get a more 'live TV' effect.

Next meeting 4/14