Robotics - Assignment 3 README

Path planning with OMPL

31/05/2019

Students: Simone Giacomelli, Oleg Borisov and Olivier Chapeau

Video link

Video

---

Folders content

• ompl_app_hack/_root:
  • install-partial.sh: recompiles the app (no checks, no source download, no dependencies etc)
• ompl_app_hack/src:
  • KinematicCarPlanning(.cpp/.h): Modified file with a very small addition that allow us to expose the SpaceInformation through python bindings; in order to be able to change the propagator
  • KinematicCarPlanning_orig(.cpp/.h): Original files
• ompl_app_hack/gui:
  • ompl_app_custom.py: Custom app file
  • plugin1.py: Main code file, the configure method is used to set the propagator (for a custom kinematics), the benchmark method is used to run benchmarks
• resources: Contains the meshes of the robots and the environments (.dae files) and the problems configuration files (.cfg files).
• benchmark_results: results of some benchmarks we run (databases and an additional pdf file)

---

Setting up the environment

To setup the environment we followed the instructions given in the ompl documentation installation page. We downloaded the script and then changed its rights and executed it with the --app in order to install ompl with the python bindings and the ompl app.
Note: 6GB of RAM is mandatory in order to generate the python bindings correctly.

$ chmod u+x install-ompl-ubuntu.sh
$ ./install-ompl-ubuntu.sh --app

Building the modified ompl_app

To build the custom ompl_app, you need to replace the files KinematicCarPlanning.h/.cpp in the source tree of the omplapp downloaded by the installation script (in omplapp-1.4.2/src/omplapp/apps) and then copy install-partial.sh near to install-ompl-ubuntu.sh and run it from the terminal.

./install-partial.sh

---

Running the modified ompl_app

Once built, the modified ompl_app can be launched by running the following command, in the ompl_app_hack/gui folder:

python3 ompl_app_custom.py

Or alternatively running the script plugin1.py

The planner can be launched directly without using the app, by calling the plugin1 file (in the ompl_app_hack/gui folder):

python3 plugin1.py

Without options, the plugin1.py script launch the planner on the problem with the sticking nose. However the script plugin1.py can be runned with the following options:

• --broken_wheel: To run the problem with the broken wheel and without a stick nose
• --bench: To run the benchmarks on one of the previous problems

---

Producing the benchmark plots

To produce the benchmarks, we tried to follow the instructions given in the documentation, however some informations are outdated. Here are the steps to create visualizations from the benchmark log.

• First, you need to run the following command to generate the database

ompl_benchmark_statistics.py logfile.log -d mydatabase.db

• Then, you have to go to the planner arena website, part of the ompl project. In the menu there is an option "Change database" where you can upload the previously generated database.

• To finish, go to "Overall performance" in the menu of planner arena to have to tool to display different plots.

---