damonmin / carla-autoware

Integration of AutoWare AV software with the CARLA simulator

Autoware in Carla

Integration of AutoWare AV software with the CARLA simulator

Requirements

• ROS kinetic
• Autoware (tested with 1.12.0)
• CARLA 0.9.6

Opens

• object detection (especially traffic lights)
• no compliance with traffic rules (due to missing vector map)

Setup

Autoware

Setup/build Autoware as described here: https://github.com/CPFL/Autoware

Carla

#download docker image (e.g. version 0.9.6)
docker pull carlasim/carla:<carla-version>

#extract the Carla Python API from the image
cd ~
mkdir carla-python
docker run --rm --entrypoint tar carlasim/carla:<carla-version> cC /home/carla/PythonAPI . | tar xvC ~/carla-python

Carla Autoware Bridge

The Carla Autoware Bridge contains two submodules: the Carla ROS bridge (https://github.com/carla-simulator/ros-bridge.git) and point cloud maps for Carla Towns (https://bitbucket.org/carla-simulator/autoware-contents). Clone the repository and initialize the submodules:

[Warning]: Make sure you have git lfs(Large File System) installed. To install git lfs, please go to git lfs documentation

cd ~
git lfs clone https://github.com/carla-simulator/carla-autoware.git
cd carla-autoware
git submodule update --init

The Carla Autoware Bridge is a ROS package. Therefore we create a catkin workspace (containing all relevant packages).

cd catkin_ws
source <path-to-autoware>/install/setup.bash
catkin_init_workspace src/

# install dependencies
rosdep update
rosdep install -y --from-paths src --ignore-src --rosdistro $ROS_DISTRO

catkin_make

Run

To run Autoware within Carla please use the following execution order:

1. Carla Server
2. Autoware (including carla-ros-bridge and additional nodes)

You need two terminals:

#Terminal 1

#execute Carla
#For details, please refer to the CARLA documentation
nvidia-docker run -p 2000-2001:2000-2001 -it --rm carlasim/carla:<carla-version> ./CarlaUE4.sh


#Terminal 2

export CARLA_AUTOWARE_ROOT=~/carla-autoware/autoware_launch
export CARLA_MAPS_PATH=~/carla-autoware/autoware_data/maps
source $CARLA_AUTOWARE_ROOT/../catkin_ws/devel/setup.bash
export PYTHONPATH=$PYTHONPATH:~/carla-python/carla/dist/carla-<carla-version>-py2.7-linux-x86_64.egg:~/carla-python/carla/
roslaunch $CARLA_AUTOWARE_ROOT/devel.launch

Multi machine setup

You can run Autoware and Carla on different machines. To let the carla autoware bridge connect to a remote Carla Server, execute roslaunch with the following parameters

roslaunch host:=<hostname> port:=<port number> $CARLA_AUTOWARE_ROOT/devel.launch

Ego Vehicle

The setup of the sensors is defined within sensors.json.

carla_ego_vehicle reads the file and spawn the ego vehicle and the sensors.

Development support

Set Start/End of Route

When starting the carla_autoware_bridge a random spawn point and a fixed goal is used to calculate the route.

To override this, you can use RVIZ.

• selecting a Pose with '2D Pose Estimate' will delete the current ego_vehicle and respawn it at the specified position.
• selecting a Pose with '2D Nav Goal' will set a new goal within carla_waypoint_publisher.

Manual steering

Press B to be able to steer the ego vehicle within ROS manual control.

Internally, this is done by stopping the conversion from the Autoware control message to AckermannDrive within the node vehiclecmd_to_ackermanndrive. The relevant ros-topic is /vehicle_control_manual_override.

Use Carla Ground Truth Objects

You can skip the Autoware perception by using the ground truth objects from CARLA. Therefore disable all relevant Autware perception nodes and execute:

rosrun carla_autoware_bridge carla_to_autoware_detected_objects

The objects get then published to /tracked_objects.

Design

The bridge contains three Carla Clients.

1. ROS Bridge - Monitors existing actors in Carla, publishes changes on ROS Topics (e.g. new sensor data)
2. Ego Vehicle - Instantiation of the ego vehicle with its sensor setup.
3. Waypoint Calculation - Uses the Carla Python API to calculate a route.

Scenario Execution

It is possible to use CARLA scenario runner in conjunction with autoware: Documentation.

Troubleshooting

Autoware fails if started shortly after changing the Town.

There is a bug within Autoware that leads to errors if the simulation time is below 5 seconds (e.g. ray_ground_filter and ndt_matching die) The simulation time is reset whenever you change the CARLA town (e.g by executing carla_ros_bridge with argument town:=Town01). As a workaround execute ros-bridge once to change the town (roslaunch carla_ros_bridge carla_ros_bridge.launch town:=Town01), kill it and wait 5 seconds before subsequent launches.