Robotics010
commented
1 year ago Hey @MarioAlmelaUMH thank you for your interest in the bridge.
First of all the most of features and limitations are from the original carla's ros-bridge. My carla_autoware_bridge is just adding a few missing things to ros-bridge in order to support Autoware Universe, so I can surely say about the carla_autoware_bridge, but I will not be so confident about the carla's ros-bridge, because I don't know it fully. Nevertheless I'll try to answer your questions mixing the carla's ros-bridge and my carla_autoware_bridge areas of responsibility. Also some of your questions were ahead of the bridge 0.1 release docs, so I refer to the recent docs as well.
- Work in progress status means that not all initially planned features are released, but it has all features, that carla's ros-bridge has. Features that are added to ros-bridge within
carla_autoware_bridgeare described in the changelog. Currently (as for 0.1 version) it supports only autoware galactic version and control module configuration/sensors calibration for a demo vehicle are absent. Control module doesn't have a proper configuration/calibration for the selected carla.tesla.model3 vehicle, so that longitudinal riding is not acceptable (breaking too hard) and lateral steering has more error than it should be (drives one wheel onto a curb on some turns). Original carla's sensors from their demo were adjusted but there is still need to spend some effort to it. Also my additions to carla's ros-bridge were not tested thoroughly in any application, so I would expect some bugs here. - After adjusting control module I'm planning to investigate how to apply carla's synchronous mode with autoware and make some efforts to support up to humble (master) branch of Autoware. Next steps I was going to define later with the feedback from the bridge users.
- Scenarios should be definitely in the roadmap. I had an idea to check support of a scenario execution within carla + autoware, but currently I can not say if it works already
- I'm awaiting performance problems when using multiple lidars asynchronously with the bridge, but it should be possible to mitigate it with the synchronous mode (by not running in real-time, using simulation time), but it still need to be proved. The bridge should be able to support both multiple cameras/multiple lidars as well as custom sensor kits.
- Currently it won't work if you try to spawn and use mutiple ego vehicles and it should be investigated to understand what kind of effort it will require. I would start from reading about a support of multiple ego vehicles in CARLA simulator first and then would continue to think how to support it from the bridge side.
And a note more. I can not give warranty of any kind or promise any features or features dates, because as being just an AD enthusiast I can make only some fixed efforts to the project.
MarioAlmelaUMH
Dear @Robotics010
Thank you very much for this new initiative. My name is Mario and I work as a researcher at Universidad Miguel Hernandez (Spain). We have recently started to work with Carla and Autoware, and have tried different existing bridges. Our expertise is on V2X communications and would like to consider these tools for a more accurate modeling of the environment and driving. We may consider the adoption of your bridge (now or in the future) if it aligns with our needs. To this end, we would like to ask you a few questions about its status and roadmap and technical capabilities:
1) Current status. You mentioned that it is still a Work in Progress package. Can you please let us know what you mean? What are the basic features currently supported by the bridge and do you know what are its main limitations?
2) Roadmap. Since the bridge has been recently published, we understand that there will be further development to enhance the bridge and overcome the potential limitations it may have in its first version. Can you please confirm that and let us know if there is a list of features already in the roadmap? We are thinking about the implementation of the radar (as soon as it is available in Autoware) and the migration to ROS humble (understanding the limitations of Carla). Are these two in the development plan?
3) Scenarios. Carla allows generating very complex scenarios. Is the bridge capable of supporting any Carla scenarios or is there any non-supported Carla feature? Like, for example, generating multiple vehicles/pedestrians or using custom maps.
4) Multi-sensor capabilities. We’ve seen in this discussion (https://github.com/orgs/autowarefoundation/discussions/3391) that Autoware currently launches multiple lidars and that shouldn’t be a problem for the bridge. Is it possible to use different sensor_kits (or even custom ones), or does the bridge only support Autoware’s standard sensor_kit? Can the bridge support multiple lidars and multiple cameras installed in the ego vehicle?
5) Multi-bridge. For certain studies, we may need to consider multiple ego vehicles (and thus multiple Autoware instances) connected to Carla. We understand each of them will need its own bridge. Is there any effort in this direction? What kind of development would be required to achieve this?
Thank you in advance for your answers.
Mario