2024-03-14 Racing Working Group Meeting #4543

pojenwang · 2024-03-14T14:39:47Z

pojenwang
Mar 14, 2024
Collaborator

Minutes: Po-Jen Wang

Autoware on F1tenth (JetPack6)

Almost done testing the integration of F1tenth on Autoware on JetPack6. Tested the installation of F1tenth branch Autoware on JetPack6, RecordReplay demo in the simulator, and on a real car. Needed to do some further testing on replaying a trajectory on a real car.
Will push the documentation to the f1tenth_humble repo of Autoware.Universe. Users would need to first install the f1tenth_humble branch (stable) of Autoware and then f1tenth_humble branch of Autoware.Universe.
The F1tenth stack (including the drivers for VESC and joy_teleop) and our trajectory_follower_f1tenth package has been updated to work with ROS2 humble
The config file for joy_teleop needs to be updated (assign a button for the deadman switch) or the node will crash
The recordreplay_planner and recordreplay_planner_node packages that our f1tenth demo is based on were previously removed from the main branch due to a build error in ROS2 humble. The error was resolved and the packages were added back to Autoware.Universe in our branch
f1tenth_gym_ros simulator part remains unchanged
Have issues (not resolved) with JetPack6 (Ubuntu 22.04) not recognizing the Logitech Gamepad F710 controller receiver even with udev rules setup. Do not have this issue with JetPack5 (Ubuntu 20.04)

Go-kart Simulator Environment

More visual upgrades on the Pennovation Environment: replaced the trees with low-ply models with sufficient detail. Added realistic grass with particles in blender. Added sidewalks, trails, and other objects in the environment.
Began porting the environments into Unreal Engine and SodaSim. Needed to convert the model from blender to fbx format before porting it into UE. Experienced several issues:
-- Some objects have disappearing faces (mesh surface) after porting, especially the sidewalk curbs. Some of these can be resolved by fixing the normal direction of the objects. Other reasons are unknown (some suggested that one vertice cannot have too many edges)
-- Material and texture properties not ported to Unreal Engine correctly resulting in lower-quality graphics compared to rendering in blender
There's also a bug that after porting gokart into the Pennovation environment, it would not drop to the ground and start driving. This should be resolved this week
Our next goal after porting the Pennovation environment is to start recording pointcloud map and setting up lenelets. Followed by Autoware integration and testing