As a temporary break from discussing infrastructure messages, this session will cover some new features and capabilities that were developed in Open-RMF over the last 6 months. We will be talking about the motivations for the features, where they can be used, and how to use them effectively. We’ll be covering the following features:
- Mutex Groups: Apply a “mutex” label to a group of elements in the navigation graph to indicate that only one robot can use any element of that group at a time, regardless of whether the traffic conflict system believes there is room for multiple robots. This is useful in crowded or otherwise sensitive areas of a map where the usual conflict prevention system cannot accurately anticipate the high risk of deadlocks.
- Dynamic Charging: Historically the implementation of Open-RMF has required that each robot have its own dedicated charging point, and that is not allowed to change at any time. The new Dynamic Charging feature allows the charging points of any robot to be changed at any time.
- Commissioning: The new commissioning feature allows an operator to request that robot stops receiving new tasks and can also toggle the “idle behavior” (e.g. having the robot return to its charger). This feature also allows pending tasks to be reassigned across different robots within the same fleet. However, tasks that have already been started by a robot cannot be transferred to another robot.
If there are any other interoperability tools or frameworks that anyone wants to introduce to the interest group or present an update on, feel free to post an issue on the community GitHub page or contact mxgrey@intrinsic.ai directly to get on the agenda.
