Mission Planner

Purpose

Mission Planner calculates a route that navigates from the current ego pose to the goal pose following the given check points. The route is made of a sequence of lanes on a static map. Dynamic objects (e.g. pedestrians and other vehicles) and dynamic map information (e.g. road construction which blocks some lanes) are not considered during route planning. Therefore, the output topic is only published when the goal pose or check points are given and will be latched until the new goal pose or check points are given.

The core implementation does not depend on a map format. Any planning algorithms can be added as plugin modules. In current Autoware Universe, only the plugin for Lanelet2 map format is supported.

Interfaces

Parameters

Services

Subscriptions

Publications

Route section

Route section, whose type is autoware_planning_msgs/LaneletSegment, is a “slice” of a road that bundles lane changeable lanes. Note that the most atomic unit of route is autoware_planning_msgs/LaneletPrimitive, which has the unique id of a lane in a vector map and its type. Therefore, route message does not contain geometric information about the lane since we did not want to have planning module’s message to have dependency on map data structure.

The ROS message of route section contains following three elements for each route section.

• preferred_primitive: Preferred lane to follow towards the goal.
• primitives: All neighbor lanes in the same direction including the preferred lane.

Goal Validation

The mission planner has control mechanism to validate the given goal pose and create a route. If goal pose angle between goal pose lanelet and goal pose’ yaw is greater than goal_angle_threshold parameter, the goal is rejected. Another control mechanism is the creation of a footprint of the goal pose according to the dimensions of the vehicle and checking whether this footprint is within the lanelets. If goal footprint exceeds lanelets, then the goal is rejected.

At the image below, there are sample goal pose validation cases.

Implementation

Mission Planner

Two callbacks (goal and check points) are a trigger for route planning. Routing graph, which plans route in Lanelet2, must be created before those callbacks, and this routing graph is created in vector map callback.

plan route is explained in detail in the following section.

@startuml
title goal callback
start

:clear previously memorized check points;

:memorize ego and goal pose as check points;

if (routing graph is ready?) then (yes)
else (no)
  stop
endif

:plan route;

:publish route;

stop
@enduml

Route Planner

plan route is executed with check points including current ego pose and goal pose.

@startuml
title plan route
start

if (goal is valid?) then (yes)
else (no)
  stop
endif

:plan path between each check points;

:initialize route lanelets;

:get preferred lanelets;

:create route sections;

if (planed route is looped?) then (no)
else (yes)
  :warn that looped route is not supported;
endif

:return route;

stop
@enduml

plan path between each check points firstly calculates closest lanes to start and goal pose. Then routing graph of Lanelet2 plans the shortest path from start and goal pose.

initialize route lanelets initializes route handler, and calculates route_lanelets. route_lanelets, all of which will be registered in route sections, are lanelets next to the lanelets in the planned path, and used when planning lane change. To calculate route_lanelets,

1. All the neighbor (right and left) lanes for the planned path which is lane-changeable is memorized as route_lanelets.
2. All the neighbor (right and left) lanes for the planned path which is not lane-changeable is memorized as candidate_lanelets.
3. If the following and previous lanelets of each candidate_lanelets are route_lanelets, the candidate_lanelet is registered as route_lanelets
   • This is because even though candidate_lanelet (an adjacent lane) is not lane-changeable, we can pass the candidate_lanelet without lane change if the following and previous lanelets of the candidate_lanelet are route_lanelets

get preferred lanelets extracts preferred_primitive from route_lanelets with the route handler.

create route sections extracts primitives from route_lanelets for each route section with the route handler, and creates route sections.

Rerouting

Reroute here means changing the route while driving. Unlike route setting, it is required to keep a certain distance from vehicle to the point where the route is changed. If the ego vehicle is not on autonomous driving state, the safety checking process will be skipped.

And there are three use cases that require reroute.

• Route change API
• Emergency route
• Goal modification

Route change API

It is used when changing the destination while driving or when driving a divided loop route. When the vehicle is driving on a MRM route, normal rerouting by this interface is not allowed.

Emergency route

The interface for the MRM that pulls over the road shoulder. It has to be stopped as soon as possible, so a reroute is required. The MRM route has priority over the normal route. And if MRM route is cleared, try to return to the normal route also with a rerouting safety check.

Goal modification

This is a goal change to pull over, avoid parked vehicles, and so on by a planning component. If the modified goal is outside the calculated route, a reroute is required. This goal modification is executed by checking the local environment and path safety as the vehicle actually approaches the destination. And this modification is allowed for both normal_route and mrm_route. The new route generated here is sent to the AD API so that it can also be referenced by the application. Note, however, that the specifications here are subject to change in the future.

Rerouting Limitations

• The safety judgment of rerouting is not guaranteed to the level of trajectory or control. Therefore, the distance to the reroute change must be large for the safety.

Limitations

• Dynamic objects (e.g. pedestrians and other vehicles) and dynamic map information (e.g. road construction which blocks some lanes) are not considered during route planning.
• Looped route is not supported.

Changelog for package autoware_mission_planner

1.0.0 (2025-03-31)

• chore: update version in package.xml
• feat: port simplified version of autoware_mission_planner from Autoware Universe (#329)
  • feat: port autoware_mission_planner from Autoware Universe
  • chore: reset package version and remove CHANGELOG
  • chore: remove the _universe suffix from autoware_mission_planner
  • feat: repalce tier4_planning_msgs with autoware_internal_planning_msgs
  • feat: remove route_selector module
  • feat: remove reroute_availability and modified_goal subscription
  • remove unnecessary image
  • style(pre-commit): autofix
  • fix: remove unnecessary include file
  • fix: resolve useInitializationList error from cppcheck
  • Apply suggestions from code review

  * style(pre-commit): autofix ---------Co-authored-by: pre-commit-ci[bot] <66853113+pre-commit-ci[bot]\@users.noreply.github.com> Co-authored-by: Yutaka Kondo <<yutaka.kondo@youtalk.jp>>

• Contributors: Ryohsuke Mitsudome