Revision history [back]

You'll need to build a map using SLAM, unless you want to create that by hand. See, e.g. this tutorial:

http://www.ros.org/wiki/pr2_simulator/Tutorials/BuildingAMapInSimulation

Other alternatives are to use the /odom frame for navigation, but that will drift over time on a real robot, so you can't drive to a specific x,y then.

However, building a map and localizing in it will only work if there is something in the world, i.e. it won't work for the empty world.