Helmert's and Bowie's geodetic mapping methods and their relation to graph-based SLAM

The problem of simultaneously localization a robot and modeling the environment is a prerequisite for several robotic applications and a large variety of solutions have been proposed allowing robots to build maps and use them for navigation. Also the geodetic community addressed large-scale mapping for centuries, computing maps which span across continents. These mapping processes had to deal with several challenges that are similar to those of the robotics community. In this paper, we explain two key geodetic mapping methods that we believe are relevant for robotics. We also aim at providing a geodetic perspective on current state-of-the-art SLAM methods and at identifying similarities between the solutions proposed by both communities. The central goal of this paper is to bring both fields close together and to enable future synergies.