AbstractThis article presents an approach to SLAM that takes advantage of panoramic images. Landmarks are interest points detected and matched in the images and mapped according to a bearings‐only SLAM approach. As they are acquired and processed, the panoramic images are also indexed and stored into a database. A database query procedure, independent of the robot and landmark position estimates, is able to detect loop closures by retrieving memorized images that are close to the current robot position. The bearings‐only estimation process is described, and results over a trajectory of a few hundreds of meters are presented and discussed. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.