Campus Autonomy: Navigating the Future with Autonomous Indoor-Outdoor Delivery Vehicles

Project Overview

The “Campus Autonomy” project focuses on developing an autonomous delivery vehicle capable of navigating both indoor and outdoor environments within a campus setting. By assembling an Agile X HUNTER SE Ackermann model drive vehicle equipped with advanced sensors like Lidar and panoramic camera, the project aims to address the complex challenges of autonomous localization, path planning and navigation.

Key Technologies

• Agile X HUNTER SE vehicle platform
• Hesai PandarQT64 Lidar
• Insta360 Air panoramic camera
• ROS2 framework with Navigation2
• SLAM using Cartographer
• Smac hybrid A* planner
• MPPI controller

System Architecture

The system integrates sophisticated hardware and software components:

• Hardware:
  • Agile X HUNTER SE vehicle
  • Hesai PandarQT64 Lidar for environment perception
  • Insta360 Air panoramic camera for visual input
  • Odometer and IMU for precise movement tracking
• Software:
  • ROS2 framework
  • Navigation2 package for path planning
  • Cartographer for SLAM operations
  • Behavior trees for navigation strategy
  • Custom Nav2 plugins optimized for Ackermann steering

Key Features

1. Indoor-Outdoor Navigation: Seamless transition between indoor and outdoor environments
2. Advanced Path Planning: Using Smac hybrid A* and MPPI controller
3. Real-time Obstacle Avoidance: Dynamic obstacle detection and path adjustment
4. Modular Design: Scalable architecture for future expansions

Future Work

Future development will focus on:

1. Introducing osmAG map format into the navigation2 stack
2. Replacing Global Planner with osmAG Planner plug-in
3. Replacing osmAG Localizer with AMCL
4. Implementing Smac Hybrid A* algorithm for improved path planning
5. Customizing local cost map for real-time dynamic obstacle detection

Project Team

• Jiajie Zhang (zhangjj2023@shanghaitech.edu.cn)
• Yongqi Zhang (zhangyq12023@shanghaitech.edu.cn)