[ros-users] 3D path planning
Raymond Sheh
rsheh at cse.unsw.edu.au
Sat Feb 26 14:47:55 UTC 2011
Hi Aswin,
I'm still coming up to speed with ROS so I'm not familiar with what's
there but I did do a fair bit of research in this area (and am
reasonably familiar with the Packbot) ... here's my 2c on this topic.
Depending on how hard your "highly undulating military environment" is,
you might well have quite a challenge on your hands. Realtime,
deployable path planning through "advanced mobility" terrain (terrain
where you actually need to consider the 3D characteristics of the
terrain in detail) is still largely an open research problem, especially
with a small reconfigurable tracked vehicle such as the Packbot. The
vast majority of such autonomous systems demonstrated in the real world
"solve" the problem mostly by restricting the robot to terrain that its
intrinsic mechanical design allows it to easily overcome, rather than
via true 3D planning.
Unless you plan on turning this into a full blown research project in
its own right, your best approach may be to keep to areas that you can
easily detect as drivable in your pointcloud and then do 2D path
planning over the resulting space. You won't max out the capabilities of
the Packbot (and for a basic 2D planner that isn't able to move the
flippers, a Packbot is often *less* mobile than a similarly sized 4WD
robot such as a Pioneer AT or a Volksbot RT because the tracks can make
it harder to turn and it can be more easily high-centred) but at least
you'll have something working. Alternatively, if you can restrict your
tasks to things like detecting and climbing stairs or kerbs or other
detectable, structured objects and then 2D plan between them you might
also be able to make some progress.
I'm not familiar with the modules available in ROS (that in itself is an
active research topic) but it's possible there's something there you can
start with but for a robot such as the Packbot, even detecting what is
and isn't drivable in a meaningful fashion (ie. more than simply
detecting flat ground but including steps and kerbs that the Packbot is
able to drive over) in a natural environment is also rather non-trivial.
Best of luck! :-)
- Raymond
On 25/02/2011 4:31 PM, Aswin Thomas wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> Does anyone know of a reliable algorithm that can do path planning in
> 3D? Assuming that a 3D point cloud is available in real time. Are
> there any ROS packages are available?
>
> I have a packbot and am supposed to navigate it autonomously in a
> highly undulating military environment. I have no idea how to go about
> doing it.
>
> On another note, I am a new ROS user and have a hard time
> understanding the navigation tutorials. Is there any ROS based project
> I can take a look? A very very simplified one will do. Its just to
> help me take off since I have a project deadline in a month.
>
>
> Thanks for your suggestions.
>
>
> Cheers
>
> Aswin
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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> ros-users at code.ros.org
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--
/~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\
| ___ ___ | School of Computer Science |
| /__/ /__ | and Engineering, |
| / \aymond ___/heh | The University of New South Wales, |
| | UNSW SYDNEY NSW, 2052, AUSTRALIA |
| rsheh at cse.unsw.edu.au | http://rsheh.web.cse.unsw.edu.au |
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
| Right now I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time. |
| I think I've forgotten this before. |
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