[ros-users] Navigation Stack performance

[Eric Perko]

Gonçalo,

Could you try turning down the loop rates on things until the robot
can move safely? For example, you could reduce the loop rate by
changing the controller_frequency documented here:
http://www.ros.org/wiki/move_base . I've also seen CPU time free up by
turning down the update and publish frequencies of the costmaps. It
may also be useful to set the costmaps to the 2D grid vs. a voxel grid
(which I believe is the default). That parameter is documented here:
http://www.ros.org/wiki/costmap_2d#Map_type_parameters .

Basically, whenever I encountered a loop rate that was regularly
missing it's requested rate, I had to reduce the update frequency or,
in the case of the costmaps, size or resolution. I suggest reducing
loop rates until the warnings go away and checking to see if the
robots can still move safely in the environment with the slower update
rates.

Let us know how it goes - I'm interested in the parameters you end up
with and what performance you see on lower-end hardware.

- Eric

2010/7/7 Gonçalo Cabrita <goncabrita at gmail.com>:
> Hi everyone!
> Here at the lab we use Roomba robots with Eee PCs on top. The Eee PCs have a
> single core Intel Atom processor, not the quickest thing around! Each Roomba
> is also equiped with an Hokuyo laser.
> So I've recently been playing around with the ROS nav stack. I've tried to
> make it as simple as possible according to the various tutorials and mailing
> list msgs I've came across with, however I'm always getting a warning that
> it is running below the 20Hz frequency. It is also noticeable the fact that
> the robot does not move properly, and eventually crashes.
> Previously I experimented the same setup on an Erratic robot with a Celeron,
> and although it was taking pretty much all of the processor to run the nav
> stack, it was able to move pretty well around the lab according to the
> commands I was issuing from rviz.
> So my question is, how can I use the nav stack in its simplest form, in
> order to have it running smoothly on the Eee PCs?
> I'm attaching the .yaml files I'm using for configuring the nav stack.
> Thanks in advance!
> Gonçalo Cabrita
>
>
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