vrx_2022 wildlife_task

Task 4: Wildlife Encounter and Avoid

Summary

This task requires the system to track a heterogeneous set of moving animals representing animal life and plan an appropriate action according to the animal type. The system should plan and traverse a path that

• circles clockwise around platypus markers,
• circles counterclockwise around turtle markers, and
• avoids (i.e. remains at a distance of 10m from) crocodile markers.

How to Practice

Step 1: Launch the example

roslaunch vrx_gazebo wildlife.launch

Step 2: Subscribe to relevant topics

The following ROS topics contain information relevant to this task:

/vrx/task/info
/vrx/wildlife/animals/poses

For the timeout counter and your current score, subscribe to the /vrx/task/info topic:

rostopic echo /vrx/task/info

To receive the location of each animal in spherical coordinates, subscribe to the /vrx/wildlife/animals/poses topic:

rostopic echo /vrx/wildlife/animals/poses

Step 3: Complete the task

• Always stay 10 meters away from the crocodiles!
• Circumnavigate the platypus clockwise while staying within a 10 meter radius.
• Circumnavigate the turtles counterclockwise while staying within a 10 meter radius.

Notes / Hints:

• If you hit an animal with the WAM-V, your current circumnavigation status is reset.
• The task finishes when all circumnavigable animals have been circumnavigated or the task timeouts.
• Your time bonus is always applied at the end of the task.
• For debugging purposes you can launch the simulation with roslaunch vrx_gazebo wildlife.launch extra_gazebo_args:="--verbose" and you will see the completion percentage when you start circumnavigating an animal:

[Dbg] [wildlife_scoring_plugin.cc:191] [WildlifeScoringPlugin::Buoy] turtle_buoy::link Virtual gate crossed 
counterclockwise! (25% completed)