November 5, 2021

⟵Past week

---

Reminders

• Everyone can update this document as needed
• Move your Issues to the appropriate ZenHub columns and add details to your Issue as comments

Rosbags

• New rosbags are available on the Quad at /home/share/bags
• Copy these bags to your home directory as needed
• Run with ros2 bag play [rosbag2...]/[rosbag2...db3]
• Documentation is available online and in the CLI (ros2 bag play -h)
• A manifest is available at /home/share/bags/README.md.

Open Lab

After speaking with other members, it seems there's an interest in having a set time where people can come and work on their tasks in a team environment.

We will be holding "Open Lab" hours in our upstairs lab, ECSW 2.445, from 6:30-8:30pm on Mondays and Wednesdays, starting this Wednesday, 11/10. These times will likely be adjusted over time, we'll see how it goes.

This is a great way to have any questions answered or collaborate with your teammates. Hope to see you there!

Member updates

Quinn (Education and Outreach)

• Quinn will work with other members to take their technical work and convert it into approachable, valuable lesson plans for a high school setting.

Avery (Firmware)

• Turn GPS data into full ROS node (now functional)
• GPS node now just requires cleanup
• Node can publish GPS position, velocity, and heading

Vishvak (Mapping)

• Focusing on fixing our mapping pipeline, which starts with turning live Lidar data into a fused map, moves to aligning the PCD map with the Lanelet map/satelite data, then PCD cleanup and stitching

• Working to deliver live mapping demonstation by the end of the Sprint, likely using exisiting libraries and either our data or a public dataset

• Cleanup of existing map publishers and/or development of new map publishers will wait until future Sprint

  • Includes optimizing map data delivery to only publish needed map regions

Dylan (Public Relations)

• Will write spotlight articles on members weekly

  • Started with Phu

• Planning collaboration with IEEE

• Also connected with friends in ACM, WIE

• Will begin providing project updates on our lab's Surface Hub, meant for window watchers

• Wants to take pictures and video of Hail Bopp at work

Josh (Software Architecture)

• Nice new readme for Navigator has been pushed to dev branch, will move to main at end of Sprint

• Bare-bones safety manager nearly complete

  • Based on ROS services, not publish-subscribe system. Services use a call-and-response approach that provides acknowledgement of receipt; this is safer for critical systems.
  • Safety events from nodes will be followed by acknolwdgement from Safety Manager.

• Will be updating test_utils to add test client support

• Adding GitHub Actions functionality to codebase, including automatic tests

Phu (Technical Art)

• Rough draft of 3D model in progress
  • Using Blender, which is freeform rather than precision
• Looking into precision modeling using Blender, which will make our model dimensionally accurate
• Modelng ZED cameras

Above: Car model draft in progress

Above: More logo concepts from Phu

Connor (Virtualization)

• Added cameras to sim vehicle
• Added file backup system

Raghav (Web Interface)

• Aim to not use raw console, use frontend console instead
• Ready to merge some code to dev branch
• Working on core communication protocol
• Working with Phu, Perception to determine how 3D data will be visualized

Will (Team Lead)

• ZED front cameras are both mounted using custom, 3D-printed parts
• ZED 2i (front) is online with a custom Docker image
  • ZED SDK and ROS wrapper need to be in custom image, as they require the L4T Ubuntu 18.04 upstream image that our main stack does not support.
    • 18.04 is EOL, but it's the only way the ZED SDK will run
  • Object Detector not fully tested
  • Rear ZED not online yet
  • Need to push Docker image to Docker Hub or GitHub Container Repository

Behavior Planning and Controls

• Jim
  • Goal: Set up path planning this sprint so that costs are assigned in next sprint
  • Two types of curve: one models environement like centerlines and curbs, other models potential paths that car generates
• Egan
  • Working on route planner, cleaning up Autoware code and adding lane change cpabilities
  • Route planner fully document
  • Need to visualize route data, including lane changes
• Cristian
  • Will derive math for car kinematic model
    • This is used for MPC, defines physical constaints for car

Perception

• Rae
  • 3D object detection methods
  • SSD or YOLO? Will check after YOLO implementation
• Kyle
  • Localization: Comparing NDT and other
  • If we want to use YOLO, use v4. ZED supports v4 models