Autoware Technical Steering Committee (TSC) Meeting #33 (2021/08/18) Minutes

Autoware
1

2021-08-18 15:00 UTC

Attendees

  • Ryohsuke Mitsudome (TSC Chair)
  • Shinpei Kato (AWF)
  • Yang Zhang (AWF)
  • Bobby Hambrick (AWF)
  • Jim Liu (AWF)
  • Girish Shirasat (AWF)
  • Daisuke Tanaka (AWF)
  • Christian John (SPC)
  • Josh Whitly (AWF)
  • Bonolo Mathibela (AWF)
  • Hiroshi Igata (ODD WG)
  • Kerem Par (Adastec)
  • Joe Speed (ADLINK)
  • Filipe Rinaldi (Arm)
  • Cheng Chen (AutoCore)
  • David Van Guyen (AutonomouStuff)
  • Jilada Eccleston (Tier IV)
  • Jaime Martin Losa (eProsima)
  • Akihiko Tsukuda (eSOL)
  • Rahul Mangharam (F1 Tenth Foundation)
  • Seonman Kim (LGE)
  • Tsutomu Otake (Macnica)
  • Pascal Lecuyot (Navya)
  • Adam Dabrowski (Robotec.ai)
  • Yao Zhai (Ziiko)

Minutes:

Action items

Board Passdowns (TSC Chair)

  • SPC:
    • Website ready to go live and BoD to review and provide final feedback before going live
    • Some areas still need update/revision and this will be addressed after new layout goes live
    • Successful AWF Meetup on July 22nd
    • Evaluating options (Pix Moving, Interpol.ai, DoT, eveAutonomy) to complete Cargo ODD demo asap given Zing demo trending towards Nov/Dec
  • Membership updates:
    • Morai: Officially joined at Industry level
    • Civil Maps: Industry level, closing membership agreement/payment still open (Girish addressing)
    • Agile X: new Industry level application, need to address trademark issue before approving application (Yang to reach out to them)
    • Renewals: Embotech (Shinpei to follow up with FTE proposal)
    • Leaving AWF: RTI and FLIR (Larry/CJ to follow-up)

Confirmation of previous minutes

Josh Whitley’s farewell to AWF

  • Josh will still be making contributions to Autoware, IAC, F1Tenth, etc
  • Looking for a replacement
    • We are looking for options to have member company’s resource to work for AWF rather than looking for a brand new engineer outside the community.

Action items review

Working group report: Autonomy Software

  • progress continues on the cargo o d d. The object tracker is nearly complete, at least for lidar. Work to add image-based detections is ongoing. The outdoor lidar data was received from polyExplore. The data are currently being processed. Once complete, they will be provided to the developers as well as LG to create a digital twin environment. The hackathon at circuit launch was a success. Approximately 15 people showed up for the Silicon Valley Meetup and three stayed for the hackathon. Significant progress was made on allowing Autoware to run on the F 1/10 platform. Instructions on how to use these improvements will be provided to the racing work group this week.

Q&A:

  • LeoDrive: we can also generate digital twin
    • Josh: we can share the data with you as well
  • Shinpei: To complete Cargo ODD as fast as possible, we are looking for other candidates

Working group report: Operational Design Domain

  • After doing a walk through of the scenario testing framework tools and drafting the additional four use cases for airport cargo delivery ODD below in natural language, the members are working on the additional four scenarios.
    • Expected debris (boxes, cones, suitcases)
    • Very narrow way/areas with objects protruding
    • Articulated vehicles with multiple links
    • Unusual-shaped (large) work vehicles
  • On the other hand, TIer IV is double checking the compatibility of the forty-three cargo delivery scenarios which ODD WG created earlier with the latest version of the traffic and simple sensor simulators (previously called the planning simulator).
  • ODD WG members listed the initial set of the hypothetical use cases drafted and have it reviewed by racing ODD WG members.
  • Tool update: LGE has kindly started consideration for connecting SVL simulator to the scenario testing framework via ZeroMQ.
    • [Joe Speed] Please talk with Joe and Cyclone DDS / Zenoh team to try ROS 2 CycloneDDS with Zenoh ROS 2 DDS plugin with LG SVLSim. Zenoh is very high performance with 3.5M telemetry messages/sec on $350 CPU. Zenoh has C# binding for ROS 2 with Unity3D used by US Air Force that SVLSim can also use. Integrating ROS2 with Eclipse zenoh · Zenoh - pub/sub, geo distributed storage, query talk to the developers & users here https://gitter.im/atolab/zenoh Joe thinks it complementary to Robotec.AI’s ROS-Unity3D CycloneDDS plugin. Zenoh can take it over wireless, internet, cloud. Is used in all IAC racecars with Autoware.Auto ROS 2 CycloneDDS
    • [Joe Speed] Please work with Arm & ADLINK to quickly get SVLSim built on ubuntu 20.04 arm64 w NVIDIA GPU. To make LGE SVLSim a big part of Autoware’s “Autoware Alley” live exhibition of “Open AD Kit” with “Kraken” at ROScon `21 Oct 21-22 in the ADLINK + GAIA + Arm booth promoted by Arm PR team

Q&A:

Working group report: Hardware

Q&A:

  • What’s the follow up with the list of supported hardware?
    • We have to decide where it should be posted. Possibly on autoware.org website
      • Autoware.org seems to be lacking the link to autoware.auto repo
      • Yoko and Chad to take care of this issue
    • CJ: the idea is that the list will be the basis to start discussion of Autoware.IO
  • Are there any roadmap/milestones for Hardware WG?
    • It should be discussed with Rodd

Working group report: Simulation

  • Scenario runner implementation in progress (by TierIV). Current status :
    • in the AWS environment Autoware.Auto and Scenario_Simulator_v2 are built.
    • in the AWS environment Autoware.Auto and Scenario_Simulator_v2 themselves work well.
    • But some scenario tests in the AWS result in errors.
    • From the Scenario_Editor, a scenario can be stored in the AWS instances
    • GUI for the results of the tests will be developed.
    • On-demand scenario execution will be integrated.
    • Authority management for the uses will be under discussion.
  • Agreement to develop metric calculation modules as ROS2 Nodes that can be used both during experiment execution and in the post processing of recorded rosbags - waiting for partner to develop sample node
  • Created Wiki page with summary of the review of all available solutions that can be used (Scenario runners, simulators, metrics, scenario formats). Looking for partners that would like to get involved in such research.

Working group report: Racing

  • Conducted hackathon August 12-13 at Circuit Launch
    • Work focused on integration of Autoware.Auto with VESC and Vehicle Interface on F1TENTH hardware platform
    • Were able to control vehicle with joystick thru Autoware to Vehicle Interface/VESC
    • Josh working to document progress and remaining working to integrate software into base package and provide download at Aug 19 Racing WG meeting
  • Autoware Foundation sponsored DIY Robocars event August 14 at Circuit Launch
    • Planning to sponsor future events and setup incentivized competitions, both simulation and live race, to engage university/developer community
  • Simulation
    • LG SVL released with support for track (IMS and Circuit Launch) and car (Delarra and F1TENTH) assets to support Autoware development
  • Autoware based AD education program
    • Did not meet milestones/objectives (mainly working Autoware.Auto on F1TENTH HW) to begin teaching program in Fall semester
    • Require accountability/commitment to Racing WG in order to re-plan for Winter semester intercept
  • IAC
    • IAC racecars regularly doing autonomous laps with race cars running Autoware.Auto ROS 2 CycloneDDS Zenoh. There are 5 cars on the track with the remaining 5 getting on the track later this month.
    • Work shifting to university teams to get ready for Oct 23 race at IMS
    • IAC race will be livestreamed at ROScon Oct 23 ~1PM EDT
    • Additional IAC activity at CES 2022
    • Major IAC exhibition at ROScon `21 in ADLINK + GAIA + Arm booth.
      • Requires LG help 1) support UoHawaii’s SVLSim use, fixing issues 2) work with Arm + Robotec.AI + GAIA + ADLINK to quickly get SVLSim onto ubuntu 20.04 arm64 with NVIDIA GPU
        • [LG] seems Unity3D does not yet support arm64 NVIDIA. Is issue for Unity + Arm to sort and support LG.
      • It would also help to get SVLSim working on on AWS graviton2 arm64 w NVIDIA GPU running ubuntu 20.04

Open AD Kit:

  • Working on to release v0.6 this month

  • ADLINK shipping 4x units of Open AD Kit reference dev kit HW to Tier IV. Is just waiting for Arm’s final approval of EULA language to print and include in the box when shipped…

  • Contact Joe Speed if you have a need Open AD Kit dev kit reference HW

FTE activity reports review

  • https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DilfJN_Rkybbo0Lg8laIXb1BsKN33H2dgUxj0y-AD38/edit?usp=sharing
  • There are few member companies not submitting reports for all year
    • For persistent non-contributor we should warn them for possible consequence (downgrading membership / removal from the foundation)
    • If there are no reports even after the warning, we should bring it to BoD
    • Needs a fair process for all members with FTE requirements.
  • Bonolo + Ryohsuke to set up a call to follow-up on members without the contribution
  • Validation of Marketing items must be discussed in SPC.
  • From the next call: Ryohsuke + Bonolo will have a first review prior to the meeting and bring up siginificant items to the TSC call.

Next ODD Proposal(SPC)

  • SPC presentation on Next ODD Proposal

Q&A

  • High Level ODD Description needs modification

    • E.g., obstacles are supported in Cargo

  • [Josh] Campus / Bus needs more definition. Cargo ODD does include obstacle avoidance and lane change (what else did Josh say?)

  • [Joe] fixed route, low speed bus is very attractive

  • Next step:

    • Should we make a vote?
    • We should provide multiple options and more details on limitations of Bus ODD
      • We can prepare additional materials by September 2, and start voting.
      • Mitsudome to ask ITRI + Adastec to help provide more detailed ODD

Updates on Cargo ODD Demo (Ryohsuke Mitsudome)

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