zjutongyang / raystar

An efficient ROS global path planner for calculating non-homotopic shortest paths

Ray*: Efficient Calculation of 2D Non-homotopic Shortest Paths

Ray* is a C++ ROS implementation of a novel planner to solve the k-shortest non-homotopic path planning (k-SNPP) problem. It is particularly useful in scenarios where a robot needs to compute alternative routes for travel, a group of mobile robots requires multiple non-homotopic routes to avoid conflicts and collisions, or a tethered robot must select suitable topological routes to move without violating maximum tether length constraints.

The package is compatible with the global_planner package in ROS Navigation: It visualizes the k-paths as markers and reports the shortest path to the move_base framework. Designed for grid-based maps, Ray* offers an efficient solution, making it a suitable replacement for the global_planner.

Citation

If you use Ray* in your project, please cite the following paper:

@article{Yang2024Tree, 
author={Yang, Tong and Huang, Li and Wang, Yue and Xiong, Rong}, 
journal={Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotic and Automation (ICRA) 2024}, 
title={Tree-based Representation of Locally Shortest Paths for 2D k-Shortest Non-homotopic Path Planning},
year={2024}, 
volume={}, 
number={}, 
pages={1-7}, 
}

Setup

Requirements

(1) CGAL (Must be built from source instead of using apt-get. Version CGAL-5.6.1 is recommended.)

(2) Other ROS-related packages required by global_planner in ROS Navigation, such as move_base, costmap_2d, etc.

Installation

(1) Clone this repository

(2) Build it with catkin_make

Usage

To use Ray* with ROS Navigation stack, replace the default global planner setting with Ray*: (1) Open the move_base launch file.

(2) Find the parameter for the global planner and change it from global_planner/GlobalPlanner to raystar/Raystar.

(3) Run the ROS Navigation stack as you normally would.

Interface

Input:

The number of required non-homotopic locally shortest path, K (default: K = 5).

Output

(1) non_homotopic_paths(type: visualization_msgs::MarkerArray): A topic that visualises all the k paths.

(2) poly_obstacles(type: visualization_msgs::MarkerArray): A topic that visualises polygonal obstacles (for debugging purposes).

License

Ray* is licensed under the MIT license.