Mobile Robot Control 2024

'Hero the Toyota HSR'

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Introduction

This course is about software design and how to apply this in the context of autonomous robots. The accompanying assignment is about applying this knowledge to a real-life robotics task.

Course Schedule and Lecture Slides

Lectures will typically take place on the Wednesdays between 15:30-17:15. Guided self-study will take place on Fridays between 10:45 and 12:30. The course schedule is as follows:

Date
Wednesday April 24	Lecture: Introduction to mobile robot control	Lecture Slides Introduction
Friday April 26	Lecture: Best practices for C++ and Git Guided selfstudy	Assignments week 1 Practical exercises week 1 Using maps on the robots Lecture Slides Best Practices for C++ and Git
Wednesday May 1	Lecture: Local Navigation	Lecture Slides Local Navigation
Friday May 3	Guided selfstudy	Assignment Local Navigation
Wednesday May 8	Lecture: Global Navigation	Lecture Slides Global Navigation
Friday May 10	Ascension day
Wednesday May 15	Guided selfstudy	Assignment Global Navigation
Friday May 17	Lecture: Localization	Lecture Slides Localization
Wednesday May 22	Guided selfstudy	Assignment Localization
Friday May 24	Guided selfstudy
Wednesday May 29	Lecture: System architecture	Lecture Slides System Architecture
Friday May 31	Guided selfstudy
Friday May 31	Deadline intermediate peer reviews
Wednesday June 5	Presentation of designs by the groups
Friday June 7	Guided selfstudy
Friday June 7	Deadline exercises
Wednesday June 12	Guest lectures: "Safe navigation in a hospital environment" and "The Truck as a Mobile Robot"	Context-aware navigation slides Truck as a mobile robot Lecture slides
Friday June 14	Guided selfstudy
Friday June 21	Final Challenge
Friday June 28	Deadline: Wiki Pages + Peer review

Getting Started

To get started, you can follow the installation instructions found in the exercises for week 1. You can already do this before the first lecture.

For students who are not comfortable with c++ we highly recommend taking a look at this tutorial: https://cplusplus.com/doc/tutorial/

For the course we use our own custom library to communicate with the robot. You can find documentation of that library here

Restaurant Competition

Location Location Location

The final challenge will take place in the hall of gemini-south from 10:45-12:30

Overview of a possible restaurant setup, not up to scale!

Challenge Description

The figure on the right shows a 2D representation of a possible Restaurant setup, as an example. The objective is for Hero to "deliver" orders from the kitchen to a few tables. Which tables must be reached and in what order will be defined by the judges just before the challenge starts. The restaurant will contain a number of unknown static and dynamic objects (boxes, human actors walking)

The delivery of an order is defined as follows

• Drive up to the table.
• Position near the table, facing towards the table. The robot should be close enough for a customer to comfortably take their order from the tray. The exact part of the table that the robot stands next to does not matter.
• Give a clear sound signal, signalling Hero has arrived at table A (io.speak("I arrived at table four")).
• Repeat until all the tables are visited in the correct order (your robot does not need to return to the starting point)

Environment Specifications

• All walls in the restaurant will be approximately straight. No weird curving walls.
• The tables can be regarded to be solid objects that will show up as rectangles in the LiDAR measurements (So you won't have to detect the table's legs).
• The doors inside the restaurant will be openings in the walls of about 0.5-1m that may be closed or open. Doors can be opened by standing in front of one and having the robot ask for it to be opened.
• There may be multiple routes to a given goal.
• A number of dynamic objects will be present in the form of human actors. Additionally, a number of static objects will be placed throughout the restaurant (including possible chairs next to the tables!). The position does not have to be parallel to the walls.
  • Chairs will Not show up as squares in your LiDAR measurements. You will only see the legs!
  • These extra objects will not be present on the map that you're provided ahead of time.

Challenge Conditions

• Hero will start in the start area, defined by a rectangle of approximately 1 by 1 meters. The orientation of Hero is arbitrary (i.e., not known to your software).
• The list of tables to be visited will be provided right before the challenge starts as a list of integers (0 identifies the first table in the array).
• After starting the software, Hero has to drive to the first table to deliver the order.
• If Hero found the correct table and signalled his arrival, he has to drive to the next tables to deliver the orders.
• The task is completed after Hero visited all tables on the list.
• Within the restaurant start area, we will make sure that some visible features (i.e. lines, corners) remain visible.
• An actual map of the restaurant will be provided to the teams one week before the final challenge (an example is provided at the bottom of this section).

Challenge Rules

• The list of tables to visit has to be supplied to the executable when starting the challenge, in the following format (for tables in the order: 2 -> 4 -> 3):

./hero_do_your_thing 2 4 3 

• Do not touch the walls or objects! Slightly touching is allowed, however, bumping (i.e., driving head-on into a wall) is not allowed! If Hero hits the wall, we decide whether it counts as bumping.
• Every team has two trials (= max one restart). A trial ends if:
  • Hero bumps into: the wall, a static or a dynamic object.
  • Hero has not moved or has not made sensible movements (as judged by the tutors) for 30 seconds
  • The total time limit of 10 minutes per group is reached
  • The group requests a restart (on the first trial)
• restart means:
  • Hero restarts at the defined start position
  • The trail time (= the time graded) is reset, but
  • the total time keeps running
• There will be no second attempt if first attempt was successful
• Every situation that might occur, that is not covered in this document will be evaluated on the spot. If this happens, the judges have the final word.

Robot Software

• Make sure your software is easy to set-up, i.e:
  • Your software can be updated with one easy command, e.g. 'git pull'
  • Your software can be compiled using 'cmake' and 'make'
  • It is allowed to use multiple executables.
  • If your set-up deviates from this method, let your tutor know 1 week before the challenge!
• The software of all groups will be updated on the robot the morning before the challenge starts
  • This way, teams starting the challenge have as much time as teams that do the challenge at the end, compiling in between trials is not allowed.

Interview

During the final challenge the tutors will interview one person of your group to explain your robots behaviour.

Example map format and code

• We provide a simple example of a room with two tables and the code to read the map into your own C++ code.
• We used the 20cm thickness blocks for your convenience
• Remember to add unknown objects to your simulator and test environments and/or create other challenging maps and test scenarios!

You can find an example map (JSON) and the code to get you started here: File:Mrc map format 2021.zip

• 
  Overview of example map.
• 
  Visualisation of vector map.
• 
  Bitmap representation of map, used for simulator (see zip file).

An example map (PNG) for the restaurant challenge with more tables is provided here: File:ExampleRestaurantMap.png.

You can use the following settings (resolution etc.) in your YAML-file:

image: ExampleRestaurantMap.png #include the (relative) path to where you put the PNG-file 
resolution: 0.0125
origin: [0.0, 0.0, 0.0]
occupied_thresh: 0.9
free_thresh: 0.1
negate: 0

A distorted version of this map, with slightly displaced walls and tables and some added obstacles, is provided here: File:ExampleRestaurantMapDistorted.png.

Map For The Final Challenge

The map for the final challenge will be published here in the week leading up to the final challenge. Clutter will be added (both static and moving) on the day of the challenge, adhering to the rules specified under "Restaurant Challenge".

Group Wiki Pages

During the course you will design your own robotic system under the guidance of a tutor. The tutors are there to guide the process, Not to give answers to the exercises.

As part of your final grade we ask you to report on your progress using the wiki pages below.

Please record on the wiki your answers to the exercises as well as your developments for the final challenge.

Group name	GitLab page	Wiki page	Tutor	Tutor email
Wall-E	visit GitLab	visit wiki	Ruben Beumer	r.m.beumer@tue.nl
HAL-9000	visit GitLab	visit wiki	Peter van Dooren	p.v.dooren@tue.nl
R2-D2	visit GitLab	visit wiki	Robert de Bruijne	r.c.a.d.bruijne@tue.nl
Rosey	visit GitLab	visit wiki	Koen de Vos	k.d.vos@tue.nl
The Iron Giant	visit GitLab	visit wiki	Peter van Dooren	k.d.vos@tue.nl
Ultron	visit GitLab	visit wiki	Aron Aertssen + Rudolf Huisman	a.j.aertssen@tue.nl, r.g.m.huisman@tue.nl
Optimus Prime	visit GitLab	visit wiki	Gijs van den Brandt	a.a.h.m.v.d.brandt@tue.nl
Robocop	visit GitLab	visit wiki	Gijs van Rhijn	g.h.m.v.rhijn@tue.nl

With your wiki page you will convey your approach and your lessons-learned to ‘the outside world’; the tutors and the next generation of MRC students. There are two ways to do this: 1) readable code with comments and 2) a detailed description of your system on the wiki.

We give some guidelines and topics that we will be looking for, but encourage you to be creative: what separates your group from the others?

A main point of interest for the final evaluation will be: the justification behind your design choices and a reflection on them. why did you choose the techniques that you did, what test did you perform to validate them, were the results as expected, and did you change anything on the basis of these results?

Other things that the tutors will look at:

Exercises

• Can we see that you succesfully completed the exercises from your wiki page.

Problem statement

• Description of the properties of the environment
• Which challenging situation might the robot encounter?

System design

• Data flow
• State flow

Local planner

• Which local planner have you selected and why?
• How did you integrate the local planner with the other components of your system?

Global planner

• Which global planner have you selected and why?
• How did you integrate the local planner with the other components of your system?

Localization

• Which localization have you selected and why?
• How did you integrate the local planner with the other components of your system?

System validation

• How did you validate your system design before the final challenge? Please upload a description of the experiment performed and a video.
• Were you able to implement all the functionalities in your system design? If not, why?

Final challenge evaluation

• How did your robot performed during the final challenge?
• Did you notice differenced between the system validation tests that you performed and the behavior of your robot in the final challenge?
• Can you analyse the cause of the observed differences?

Reflection on the use of generative AI for the project

• Have you used generative AI tooling in your project? If yes, reflect on how you used them and  for which tasks.
• Write a few sentences on what you think the role of generative AI has been for your learning trajectory.

Peer review

At the end of the project we would like each group to hand in a peer review. This should reflect how each group member contributed to the final project. We expect each group member to contribute equally in the technical aspects of the project.

Please consider your peers contributions in the form of:

• Technical expertise
• contributions to System design
• Implementation in software
• Documentation of the project
• Communication during the project

Each of these is of roughly equal importance.

We would like to ask the group to come up with a grade for each member ranging from -1.0 to +1.0 where the sum of all grades is 0.0. Your final grade will be calculated as group_grade + peer_review_grade. The range of -1.0 to +1.0 should be sufficient for most groups where all members contribute equally. If you feel this might not be the case for your group please contact your tutor sooner rather than later.

Practical sessions

• Testing takes place on the RoboCup field in Impuls.
• Three robots will be available for testing, you will share the field with three groups
• Be sure you have your software on git before coming to the test session so that you only have to git clone/git pull to get your code on the robot!
• Please charge the robot whenever possible so there is no down time due to empty batteries.

To submit for a timeslot you have to be logged in. Through the 'edit'-button for Practical sessions, you can select a timeslot by typing your group name behind the desired timeslot.

• You may only reserve 2 test slots per week
• Submissions are last checked the day before at 22:00.

Week 2

For week 2 each group can choose 2 time slots.

Week 2 Tuesday 30 April

Time	Group
10:45-11:45	Rosey	free	free
11:45-12:45	free	free	free
13:30-14:30	free	free	free
14:30-15:30	free	free	free

Week 2 Thursday 2 May

Time	Group
10:45-11:45	Optimus Prime	free	free
11:45-12:45	Rosey	Optimus Prime	free
13:30-14:30	The Iron Giant	Wall-E	Robocop
14:30-15:30	The Iron Giant	Wall-E	free

Week 3

For week 3 there are no Thursday slots due to Ascension day. Every group can therefore only book 1 time slot on Tuesday.

Week 3 Tuesday 7 May

Time	Group
10:45-11:45	Rosey	Robocop	free
11:45-12:45	Optimus Prime	free	free
13:30-14:30	Wall-E	The Iron Giant	R2-D2
14:30-15:30	Ultron	free	free

Week 4

For week 4 each group can choose 2 time slots.

Week 4 Tuesday 14 May

Time	Group
10:45-11:45	Rosey	free	free
11:45-12:45	free	free	free
13:30-14:30	Ultron	R2-D2	free
14:30-15:30	HAL-9000	free	free

Week 4 Thursday 16 May

Time	Group
10:45-11:45	Optimus Prime	free	R2-D2
11:45-12:45	Ultron	Rosey	Optimus Prime
13:30-14:30	free	The Iron Giant	Robocop
14:30-15:30	free	The Iron Giant	Robocop

Week 5

For week 5 each group can choose 2 time slots.

Week 5 Tuesday 21 May

Time	Group
10:45-11:45	free	free	free
11:45-12:45	Optimus Prime	free	Robocop
13:30-14:30	free	The Iron Giant	free
14:30-15:30	free	free	free

Week 5 Thursday 23 May

Time	Group
10:45-11:45	Ultron	free	Rosey
11:45-12:45	free	Optimus Prime	Rosey
13:30-14:30	Wall-e	The Iron Giant	Robocop
14:30-15:30	Wall-e	free	Ultron

Week 6

For week 6 each group can choose 2 time slots.

Week 6 Tuesday 28 May

Time	Group
10:45-11:45	free	free	free
11:45-12:45	free	free	free
13:30-14:30	The Iron Giant	Ultron	free
14:30-15:30	Robocop	free	free

Week 6 Thursday 30 May

Time	Group
10:45-11:45	R2-D2	free	free
11:45-12:45	Ultron	Rosey	Optimus Prime
13:30-14:30	R2-D2	The Iron Giant	Optimus Prime
14:30-15:30	free	Robocop	free

Week 7

For week 7 each group can choose 2 time slots. However, the slots are now available during the entire day.

Week 7 Tuesday 4 June

Time	Group
8:45-9:45	free	free
9:45-10:45	free	free
10:45-11:45	free	free
11:45-12:45	free	free
13:30-14:30	Wall-E	free
14:30-15:30	free	free
15:30-16:30	free	free
16:30-17:30	free	free

Week 7 Thursday 6 June

Time	Group
8:45-9:45	The Iron Giant	Wall-E
9:45-10:45	The Iron Giant	Wall-E
10:45-11:45	HAL-9000	Rosey
11:45-12:45	Optimus prime	Rosey
13:30-14:30	Optimus prime	R2-D2
14:30-15:30	Robocop	R2-D2
15:30-16:30	Robocop	Ultron
16:30-17:30	free	Ultron

Week 8

For week 8 each group can choose 2 time slots.

Week 8 Tuesday 11 June

Time	Group
8:45-9:45	free	free
9:45-10:45	HAL-9000	free
10:45-11:45	free	free
11:45-12:45	free	free
13:30-14:30	Wall-e	free
14:30-15:30	Wall-e	free
15:30-16:30	R2D2	free
16:30-17:30	free	free

Week 8 Thursday 13 June

Time	Group
8:45-9:45	free
9:45-10:45	HAL-9000	Ultron
10:45-11:45	free	Ultron
11:45-12:45	Optimus Prime	Rosey
13:30-14:30	Optimus Prime
14:30-15:30	free	Robocop
15:30-16:30	The Iron Giant	R2D2
16:30-17:30	The Iron Giant	Robocop

Week 9

For week 9 each group can choose 3 time slots. We will only use Hero this week.

Week 9 Monday 17 June

Time	Group
8:45-9:45	R2-D2
9:45-10:45	Free
10:45-11:45	HAL-9000
11:45-12:45	R2-D2

Week 9 Tuesday 18 June

Time	Group
8:45-9:45	Wall-E
9:45-10:45	HAL-9000
10:45-11:45	Wall-E
11:45-12:45	Rosey
13:30-14:30	Ultron
14:30-15:30	The Iron Giant
15:30-16:30	free
16:30-17:30	Optimus Prime

Week 9 Wednesday 19 June

Time	Group
8:45-9:45	Wall-E
9:45-10:45	Ultron
10:45-11:45	BLOCKED
11:45-12:45	BLOCKED
13:30-14:30	Robocop
14:30-15:30	The Iron Giant
15:30-16:30	Robocop
16:30-17:30	Optimus Prime

Week 9 Thursday 20 June

Time	Group
8:45-9:45	Rosey
9:45-10:45	Ultron
10:45-11:45	Rosey
11:45-12:45	HAL-9000
13:30-14:30	R2-D2
14:30-15:30	Robocop
15:30-16:30	The Iron Giant
16:30-17:30	Optimus Prime

Contact Details

This year's staff consists of the following TU/e employees:

• Peter van Dooren (p dot v dot dooren at tue dot nl)
• Koen de Vos
• Aron Aertssen
• Ruben Beumer
• Gijs van Rhijn
• Gijs van den Brandt
• Rudolf Huisman
• Robert de Bruijne
• Hao Liang Chen
• Jordy Senden
• René van de Molengraft
• Elena Torta