AutoRally
Software for the AutoRally research platform.
Research Pages AutoRally is associated with:
- http://rehg.org/autorally
- http://dcsl.gatech.edu/research-muri-nascar.html
- http://acds-lab.gatech.edu/Research.html
Contributing
We welcome bug fixes, ehancements, new features, and feedback!
Please submit pull requests to the devel branch that conform to the ROS C++ Style Guide. We use Gitflow, so master branch is reserved for releases.
Setup Instructions
Contents
- Install Prerequisites
- Clone repository
- Install AutoRally ROS Dependencies
- Compilation/Running
- Generate Documentation
- Test Setup in Simulation
1. Install Prerequisites
-
Install Ubuntu 14.04 64-bit
-
Install required packages
sudo apt-get install git doxygen openssh-server libusb-dev texinfo
Recommended Tools
The following tools are useful, but not necessary for this project.
- feh
- cutecom
- cmake-curses-gui
- coriander
- synaptic
- arduino
- python-termcolor
-
Install ros-indigo-desktop-full
-
Install gtsam
Follow the gtsam Quick Start guide to clone and install the develop branch of gtsam.
Instead of
cmake ..
, use:cmake -DGTSAM_INSTALL_GEOGRAPHICLIB=ON -DGTSAM_WITH_EIGEN_MKL=OFF ..
Once install is complete, make sure linux can see the shared library:
sudo ldconfig
2. Clone or Fork Repositories
Get the autorally repository in a catkin workspace. The suggested location is ~/catkin_ws/src/
, but any valid catkin worskspace source folder will work. We suggest forking first if you will be working with the code.
To clone straight from the AutoRally:
git clone https://github.com/AutoRally/autorally.git
3. Install AutoRally ROS Dependencies
Within the catkin workspace folder, run this command to install the packages this project depends on.
rosdep install --from-path src --ignore-src -y
4. Compilation & Running
To compile and install run catkin_make
from the catkin workspace folder.
Due to the additional requirement of ROS's distributed launch system, you must run
source src/autorally/autorally_util/setupEnvLocal.sh
before using any AutoRally components. See the wiki for more information about how to set this system up for distributed launches on your vehicle platform.
Note: If you are unfamiliar with catkin, please know that you must run source <catkin_ws>/devel/setup.sh
before ROS will be able to locate the autorally packages. This line can be added to your ~/.bashrc file.
5. Generate Documentation
You can generate or update code documentation by running doxygen
in autorally/
.
To view code documentation open autorally/doc/html/index.html
in a web browser.
6. Start the AutoRally Simulation to Test Configuration
roslaunch autorally_gazebo autoRallyTrackGazeboSim.launch
You can use a USB gamepad to drive the simulated platform around. On startup, the runstop
message published by the joystick
node is false. Press any of the buttons by the right stick (normally labelled X, Y, A, B or square, triangle, X, circle) to toggle the published value.
Verify runstop motion is enabled by looking at the runstopMotionEnabled
paramter in the /chassisState
topic.
If you aren't using a gamepad, you will have to configure another source of runstop information for the platform to move:
-
Comment out line 93 of
autorally_gazebo/launch/autoRallyTrackGazeboSim.launch
-
rosrun rqt_publisher rqt_publisher
and configure rqt_publisher to publish a message to topic /runstop
of type autorally_msgs/runstop
at 1 Hz with sender
set to rqt_publisher
and motionEnabled
set to true.
- Verify that
runstopMotionEnabled
is true in/chassisState
topic.
7. Autonomous Driving in Simulation
At the end of this section the robot will be driving autonomously in simulation using controllers available in autorally_control
.
Position the robot in the same spot as when the simulation starts and make sure runstop motion should is enabled (set to true).
Start state estimator:
In autorally_core/launch/state_estimator.launch
change InvertY
and InvertZ
to false, then:
rosparam set /gps_imu/FixedInitialPose true
roslaunch autorally_core state_estimator.launch
Start waypoint follower:
roslaunch autorally_control waypointFollower.launch
Start constant speed controller and tell it what speed to drive:
roslaunch autorally_control constantSpeedController.launch
rosrun rqt_publisher rqt_publisher
Configure a publisher on topic constantSpeedController/speedCommand
of type std_msgs/Float64
at rate 10 with value of 3 (you can adjust he value once everything is running). The value is the target velocity in m/s, and as soon as you do this the platform should move if motion is enabled.
If the robot turns and hits the barrier it's probably because the state estimator has not converged, so its orientation estimate is incorrect. Just select the track barriers and move them up to allow the robot to continue driving, and the estimator should converge and the vehicle will return to within the barriers.
What's Next
More detailed explanations of the controllers and state estimator can be found on the wiki:
Controlling the AutoRally platform is a tutorial for how your own controller can control the AutoRally platform (in simulation or on hardware).
If you are configuring a physical AutoRally platform, the next step is to configure the compute box, all of the peripherals, and the launch system. Those instructions are found in the Platform Configuration Instructions.