Implementing a Collision Safety node

[MrOCW]

Hi, I did a few test runs on a real robot and due to certain kinematic constraints, it is unable to follow the given path exactly at times. This would have led to crashes with other vehicles had I not activated the emergency stop. It went dangerously close and did not slow down. Would it be possible to implement something like Nav2's collision monitor where the vehicle is forced to stop if a point data lands in a particular user-defined polygon? This would greatly boost the safety of Autoware!

[maxime-clem]

There are already 2 planning modules to avoid collisions:

• https://github.com/autowarefoundation/autoware.universe/tree/main/planning/obstacle_stop_planner
• https://github.com/autowarefoundation/autoware.universe/tree/main/planning/surround_obstacle_checker

However, they only check the planned trajectory and the immediate surrounding of ego.
The case you describe, where ego fails to accurately follow the planned path, is not covered by these modules.

One module that may be useful is the obstacle_collision_checker which checks collisions with the predicted path calculated by the controller. Currently this module does not force ego to stop but publishes a diagnostic message to indicate an emergency. Maybe you can connect this diagnostic message with the emergency stop function of your robot ?

If you prefer the approach of Nav2, it should be possible to reuse its collision monitor in Autoware.