Open AD Kit WG Meeting 2022/05/19

[ghost]

Administrative

Previous meeting minutes
Open AD Kit project board

Attendees

Chaired by Armağan

• Armağan (Leodrive)
• Bonolo M (AWF)
• CJ (AWF)
• David W (A3VG)
• Esteve Fernandez (T4)
• Fumihito Ito (T4)
• Hiroshi Igata (T4)
• Kasper Ornstein Mecklenberg (Arm)
• Lalith Vipulananthan (TierIV)
• Faith (Leodrive)
• Mark Lambe (KLAS)
• Nico Jaeger (Applanix)
• Ryohsuke Mitsudome (T4)
• Payam Shrokzadeh (Continental)
• Sameh Mohamed (Bosch)
• Samet Kütük (Leodrive)
• Tobias Betz (TUM)
• Tsigigenet Dessalgn (Marvell)

Agenda

• Introduction of new members
• Announcements
• Discussion topics
  • Presentation: Applanix LidarQC
  • Presentation: ISUZU Bus HW Architecture
  • Presentation: Autoware Open AD Kit GTM (CJ)
  • Granularity of containerization (proposed by Hiroshi)
  • Open AD Kit use-cases and roadmap proposal
  • Open AD Kit 2.0 scope
• Review of backlog actions

Introduction of new attendees/members

• Payam Shokrzadeh - Continental
  • Started with UK team developing level 2 ADAS systems (lane-keeping assist, braking systems etc)
  • Moved to California and now working on laser scanners and cruising activities at higher SAE autonomy levels
• Nico Jaeger - Applanix
  • Product Manager for post-processing software

Announcements

• Anadolu ISUZU was accepted to be the BUS-ODD test vehicle along with other members (ITRI, ADASTEC)

Discussion topics

Applanix LidarQC Lidar-IMU Calibration and LAS Creation Tool for Georeferenced Point Cloud Map creation

LiDAR_QC.pdf

• Presentation was on LiDAR QC for Land (a module for POSPac) that supports:
  • Boresight calibration of LiDAR sensors
  • Trajectory Adjustment (beta)
  • LAS File (point cloud) generation with applied BST angles
• Enables LiDAR to become an aiding sensor (working like SLAM) that contributes to trajectory optimisation
• Useful in critical GNSS areas with low grade systems

Questions

• Payam: What happens if the mapped area is large and overlaps two UTM zones? Do you have any systems to manage large LAS files? Any compensation for the intensity of the laser cans?
  • In terms of intensity, not used and just pushed into the LAS file
  • Limitations in size? Intention is not to capture 3 hours of data and throw all of that into the engine. Aim is to focus on critical areas where GNSS is bad, only load the LAS file for that portion and then correct trajectory accordingly. For the future, will try to be smart and automatically identify critical portions if the entire LAS file is loaded
  • First question will be followed up later

Anadolu ISUZU Hardware Architecture and the bus details

• Armağan shared details of the Anadolu ISUZU bus (ECUs, sensors and their arrangement on the bus)
• Bus is an 8m long electric bus (NovoCiti Volt) but only front-driving at the moment
• ECU is similar to one ITRI is using (Nuvo-8208GC) with two CPUs

Autoware Open AD Kit GTM

Open AD Kit 2.0 Proposal.pdf

• Slide 1
  • some thoughts from the SPC's perspective, aiming to enable Open AD Kit to run across multiple platforms
  • Autoware already works on ADLINK AVA platform, another ADLINK ECU for the Cargo Delivery ODD, currently working on applying Autoware to F1TENTH and Racing ODD and in the process of developing the bus ODD
• Slide 2
  • AWF is also working with other industry alliances, such as MIH
  • MIH are designing specific requirements (API, safety certification etc) for the components that will form part of their system
  • idea is that Open AD Kit can be used develop systems to address specific requirements of MIH
  • plan to do a demo to show Open AD Kit can be used to develop a specification for the sensor interface can be integrated into the system
• Slide 3
  • Shows a potential use case example focusing on the perception stack

Questions/comments:

• Armağan: Is there anything we need to focus on to achieve this use case?
  • CJ: What granularity of containerization is required is a question that keeps coming up. Focusing on the Perception stack is an example use case: collect sensor data, upload to the cloud, make changes, test via cloud-native CI/CD pipeline and simulations, update to the edge, collect more data and then compare performance.
• David: Can you speak more to the MIH goal?
  • CJ: They have a particular LiDAR that they want to use with a specific ECU. For example, the performance of the LiDAR with the Perception stack needs to be modified due to unwanted artifacts being detected. Collected data can be used to confirm that the artifacts are seen by testing in cloud-native simulation. Then you make some changes to the code base to remove the artifacts, confirm that artifacts are no longer seen in simulation, then push to the edge.
• Armağan: Is it decided that we're going to work on perception as per the suggested use case?
  • CJ:

Granularity of containerization

• Discussed in part during the Q&A for CJ's presentation above
• Will continue discussion of this topic in next week's meeting

Open AD Kit 2.0 scope

Potential tasks/features for inclusion in 2.0

• Integrate Autoware Universe with Open AD Kit and review the results
  • Verify that Autoware Universe can be run with Open AD Kit 1.0 autoware-projects#32
• Prepare and share with everyone the benefits, problems that could be addressed, target users, and applications of Open AD Kit architecture
  • Update Open AD Kit wiki to explain the benefits of a microservices architecture autoware-documentation#102
• Create a microservices architecture for Autoware
  • PoC is being developed by Kasper and David
• Investigate orchestration methods for self-driving vehicles
  • Requires a microservices architecture to be in place, but once the microservices PoC is complete, this can be investigated with help from SUSE or another AWF member with orchestration experience
• Define candidate computing platforms for demonstration of the final work
  • Can set this after initial tests on the three bus platforms
• Define an operational concept demonstration and create issues around it
  • If CJ's proposal is accepted, then this will be a starting point for an operational demonstration
• Integration testing using containers and orchestrator (cloud deployment, CI/CD)
  • Microservices architecture and orchestration needs to be in place first, so out of scope for 2.0?
• OTA field application (eSync or similar)
  • This should be in for 2.0! The eSync Alliance PoC is in progress and resource from T4 has been requested for integration purposes
  • Concern: eSync is not open-source and does not appear to have a free tier. Won't this be a problem for any potential Open AD Kit users who are not part of the AWF?
  • Samet offered to talk about this during the next meeting with eSync
  • Action: Lalith to create an issue about this concern and assign it to Samet for follow-up
• Find more researchers or groups who are willing to contribute, test & demonstrate
  • Although this is out of scope for the project from a technical standpoint, the GTM team are currently working on finding more OEMs to work with

Review of backlog actions

• Clarify the license that will be provided with the eSync Autoware PoC
  • Samet will follow up on this once an issue has been created about the concern over eSync not being OSS (see above)
• Integrate Autoware Universe with Open AD Kit and review the results
  • Verify that Autoware Universe can be run with Open AD Kit 1.0 autoware-projects#32
  • Are the launch files ready?
  • Mitsudome: Yes. Just need confirmation from the web team that CI/CD is available before launch files can be provided to other members to test the existing platforms
  • Action: Mitsudome-san to check with T4's web team about when CI/CD will be available to use with Universe
  • WG agreed to test the Jetson platform as well
  • Action: Lalith to add Jetson AGX Orin as a test platform to this issue
• How is this being tracked? Mitsudome-san to check with CI/CD team if the teams - Investigate how ADE is used
  • Investigate how ADE is used autoware-projects#26
  • Action: @kasperornmeck to confirm if Mitsudome-san's comment answered the question about whether this issue is still required
• Complete list of nodes and interdependencies in Autoware
  • https://github.com/autowarefoundation/autoware.universe/issues/827
  • Still in progress and should be completed by the end of the week
• Samet / CJ to update WG about MIH minimum requirements during the May 12th WG meeting
  • Collect feedback from MIH and Foxconn about their expectations for Open AD Kit autoware-projects#30
  • Done - see CJ's presentation above
• Update Open AD Kit wiki to explain the benefits of a microservices architecture
  • Update Open AD Kit wiki to explain the benefits of a microservices architecture autoware-documentation#102
  • Since this relates to marketing, Samet will also work with Kasper on this task
• Kasper and David to create a discussion for the microservices PoC
  • Done!
  • Fix points_filter dependencies. #312
• WG to provide feedback on the new meeting schedule proposal
  • https://github.com/orgs/autowarefoundation/discussions/305
  • So far, there have been two comments in Discord agreeing with the proposal
  • Any concerns or counter-proposals?
• WG to review the roadmap proposal document and provide feedback in the discussion for review by next week
  • Open AD Kit 2.0 scope comment from Hashimoto-san
  • https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TO4Ycgi96aHNYMTQRgezuOLVYV1UEMRtUX0hA5bgvW0/edit#gid=111120056
  • Action: Hashimoto-san to reply to Kasper's feedback

Actions

• Lalith to add Jetson AGX Orin as a test platform to Verify that Autoware Universe can be run with Open AD Kit 1.0 autoware-projects#32
• Lalith to create an issue regarding license concerns for eSync for Samet to raise at the next GTM meeting
  • Address concerns about the use of eSync as an OTA solution for non-AWF members autoware-projects#33
• @d-hashimoto to reply to Kasper's feedback on the Open AD Kit roadmap proposal
  • https://github.com/orgs/autowarefoundation/discussions/89#discussioncomment-2656003
• @mitsudome-r to check with T4's web team about when CI/CD will be available to use with Universe

[Sharrrrk]

Are the launch files ready?
Mitsudome: Yes. Just need confirmation from the web team that CI/CD is available before launch files can be provided to other members to test the existing platforms

@LalithVipulananthan Just to confirm that the launch files are not ready to be provided yet, right? Please let us know when it's available.

Another comment here: autowarefoundation/autoware-projects#32 (comment)

[ghost]

@Sharrrrk Correct! We are still in the process of getting the launch files ready, but we are also waiting to confirm that T4's CI/CD has been set up to work with Universe so that the quick start guide can be confirmed from start to finish. Once the launch files are ready I will update you via the issue or via Discord (and thank you for the offer to test on a Jetson AGX. I think we will most likely take you up on that offer!)

[Sharrrrk]

Thank you for the clarification.