ROG-Map: An Efficient Robocentric Occupancy Grid Map for Large-scene and High-resolution LiDAR-based Motion Planning

IROS 2024
Yunfan REN, Yixi Cai, Fangcheng Zhu, Siqi Liang, and Fu Zhang

Updates

• January 29, 2025 - The ROS2 version of ROG-Map is now available in SUPER 🛸, our open-source MAV navigation system recently accepted by Science Robotics. Check it out!

• Aug. 30, 2024 - Released the preview version of ROG-Map, including examples on:

  • Path planning with RRT* with rrt_example.launch and A* algorithom with astar_example.launch
  • Keyboard control and integration with MARSIM with marsim_example.launch

• Jun. 30, 2024 - Our paper was accepted by IEEE/RSJ IROS 204

If our repository supports your academic projects, please cite our paper. Thank you!

@article{ren2023rogmap,
    title={ROG-Map: An Efficient Robocentric Occupancy Grid Map for Large-scene and High-resolution LiDAR-based Motion Planning},
    author={Yunfan Ren and Yixi Cai and Fangcheng Zhu and Siqi Liang and Fu Zhang},
    journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:2302.14819},
    year={2023}
}

Click for the video demo.

Build Instructions

# install dependencies
sudo apt-get install ros-noetic-rosfmt
# for MARSIM example
sudo apt-get install libglfw3-dev libglew-dev
# Eigen [version testd: 3.3.7-2] and soft link 
sudo apt-get install libeigen3-dev       
sudo ln -s /usr/include/eigen3/Eigen /usr/include/Eigen
# dw for backward cpp
sudo apt-get install libdw-dev

mkdir -p rog_ws/src && cd rog_ws/src
git clone https://github.com/hku-mars/ROG-Map.git
cd ..
catkin_make -DBUILD_TYPE=Release

Report issue

When encountering build issues, please include the output from the version check script ./scripts/check_version.sh when submitting your issue.

cd rog_map/scripts
bash check_version.sh

Example:

=== GCC Version ===
gcc (Ubuntu 9.4.0-1ubuntu1~20.04.2) 9.4.0
=== G++ Version ===
g++ (Ubuntu 9.4.0-1ubuntu1~20.04.2) 9.4.0
=== Eigen Version ===
Version: 3.3.7-2

Known Build Issues

• Disable the conda environment with conda deactivate to avoid linking issues. If you have try catkin_make in conda environment, please delete the build and devel and deactivate conda, and try catkin_make again.
• If VizCfg fails to generate, try building with catkin_make -DCATKIN_DEVEL_PREFIX:PATH=${change-to-your-path-to-rog_ws}/devel.
• Eigen version problem #7, tested Eigen version: 3.3.7-2,3.4.1.

Overview

ROG-Map's three main features are zero-copy map sliding, incremental map expansion, and a counter-based multi-resolution map. All sub-maps and functionalities are built upon the SlidingMap structure. The currently open-source version includes:

• Multi-resolution inflation maps and incremental obstacle inflation:
  • Example: ProbMap resolution 0.1 m (yellow) with InfMap resolution 0.2 m (gray)

• Incremental Frontier generation
  • Example: Frontiers with a sensing range of 5m

• Sliding ESDF map generation

  

Applications

1. Running with MARSIM

First, launch the MARSIM environment:

source devel/setup.bash # or source devel/setup.zsh
roslaunch test_interface single_drone_os128.launch

Then, launch the ROG-Map test node and the keyboard controller:

sudo chmod +x -R src
roslaunch rog_map_example marsim_example.launch

Control the drone with keyboard

After launching, click on the terminal running the second launch file, use the keyboard to control the drone, and observe the local sliding map:

Use W A S D on your keyboard to control the drone's velocity, press the spacebar to stop, and press Q orh 2 2 2 Ctrl + C to exit.

Control the drone with ROS topic

Similar to the MARSIM API, the drone can be controlled through the /planning/pos_cmd ROS topic, which uses the custom message type quadrotor_msgs/PositionCommand.

In simulation, the drone model is idealized, meaning it will track the specified position and attitude (derived from the acceleration) with no delay. At a minimum, the following fields should be specified to control the drone:position,acceleration, yaw

You can try to control the drone through the script: call_pos_cmd.sh

# 					 x y z
bash scripts/call_pos_cmd.sh 1 2 2

For a more realistic simulation, please refer to the original MARSIM version.

A Python example demonstrating drone control is provided in ./examples/rog_map_example/Apps/keyboard_control.py

A similar implementation can also be created using C++.

2 Running A* Search Example

source devel/setup.bash # or source devel/setup.zsh
roslaunch rog_map_example astar_example.launch 

Then, you can press G to enable 3D Nav Goal in RViz and click to select a point. Each time you select two points, ROG-Map will perform path planning between them.

You can also enable the visualize_process_en param at ./examples/rog_map_example/config/astar_example.yaml to visualize the search process:

astar:
  visualize_process_en: true

3 Run RRT* example

source devel/setup.bash # or source devel/setup.zsh
roslaunch rog_map_example rrt_example.launch 

Then, you can press G to enable 3D Nav Goal in RViz and click to select a point. Each time you select two points, ROG-Map will perform path planning between them.

You can also enable the visualize_process_en param at ./examples/rog_map_example/config/rrt_example.yaml to visualize the sampling process:

rrt_star:
  visualize_process_en: true

TODO

• Add example for safe flight corridor generation.
• Add example for trajectory optimization.

Using ROG-Map in Your Own ROS Project

To use ROG-Map, refer to the rog_map_example package. Here’s a basic guide:

1. Copy the rog_map package to your workspace and add the following dependencies in your package.xml:

  <build_depend>rog_map</build_depend>
  <exec_depend>rog_map</exec_depend>

2. Include rog_map in your CMakeLists.txt:

find_package(catkin REQUIRED COMPONENTS
        roscpp
        std_msgs
        pcl_ros
        geometry_msgs
        nav_msgs
        rog_map # here!
)

3. Include rog_map in your source file as demonstrated in marsim_example_node.cpp

#include "rog_map/rog_map.h"

int main(int argc, char** argv) {
    ros::init(argc, argv, "rm_node");
    ros::NodeHandle nh("~");

    pcl::console::setVerbosityLevel(pcl::console::L_ALWAYS);

    /* 1. Creat a ROGMap ptr*/
    rog_map::ROGMap::Ptr rog_map_ptr = std::make_shared<rog_map::ROGMap>(nh);

    /* Publisher and subcriber */
    ros::AsyncSpinner spinner(0);
    spinner.start();
    ros::Duration(1.0).sleep();


    ros::waitForShutdown();
    return 0;
}

4. ROG-Map automatically reads parameters from the ROS parameter server. Ensure you load parameters in your launch file:

<launch>
    <node name="rm_node" pkg="rog_map_example" type="marsim_example_node" output="log">
        <!--        remember to load the parameters like here!! -->
        <rosparam command="load" file="$(find rog_map_example)/config/marsim_example.yaml"/>
    </node>

    <node name="keyboard_control" pkg="rog_map_example" type="keyboard_control.py" output="screen">

    </node>
</launch>

5. Update ROG-Map by either:

• Using ROS topics:
  • Specify odom and point cloud topic name and ROG-Map will automatically update.

rog_map:
  ros_callback:
    enable: true
    cloud_topic: "/cloud_registered"
    odom_topic: "/lidar_slam/odom"
    odom_timeout: 2.0

• Manually updating: Disable ROS topic updates in the configuration YAML:

rog_map:
  ros_callback:
    enable: false
    cloud_topic: "/cloud_registered"
    odom_topic: "/lidar_slam/odom"
    odom_timeout: 2.0

Then actively update ROG-Map by calling:

void ROGMap::updateMap(const PointCloud& cloud, const Pose& pose);

Parameters

We provide preset parameter files in ./examples/rog_map_example/config for your convenience. You can select and modify them as needed:

• No raycasting, only occupied and inflated maps: no_raycast.yaml
• Basic occupancy grid map with frontier generation and ESDF update disabled: pure_ogm.yaml
• ...

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to ZJU-FAST-Lab and HKUST Aerial Robotics Group for their great works.

• The MARSIM is modified from MARSIM

• The RRT* example was adapted from ZJU-FAST-Lab's sampling-based path finding.
• Parts of ROG-Map and the A* example were inspired by Ego-Planner.
• The ESDF module was modified from Fast-Planner, with the addition of local map sliding functionality.