Nav2 social costmap plugin

Plugin-based layer for social navigation in the Nav2 system of ROS2 (tested in ROS2 Humble Distro).

It is based on the outdated social_navigation_layers package of ROS1 Melodic. In our case, the ProxemicsLayer and the PassingLayer have been joined in a single layer.

Dependencies

• nav2-costmap-2d
• nav_msgs
• people_msgs. At the moment of this development, people_msgs were not still available to be installed from the apt ros-foxy package server. You can get the package from here: https://github.com/wg-perception/people/tree/ros2. Please, copy it and put it in your workspace.

Subscribed Topic

• /people [people_msgs/People]. The people around the robot.

Published Topic

• *(global or local)_costmap/social_grid [nav_msgs/OccupancyGrid]. Occupancy grid with the social costs employed. Only active if parameter publish_occgrid is True.

Parameter configuration

• enabled (bool, default: True). Whether to apply this plugin or not.
• people_topic (string, default: ‘/people’). The people topic to consider for the costmap.
• cutoff (double, default: 5.0). Smallest cost value to publish on the costmap.
• amplitude (double, default: 255.0). Amplitude of adjustments at peak. Maximum cost on the person center.
• covariance_front_height (double, default: 0.25). Covariance of the ordinate axis of the Gaussian at the person heading.
• covariance_front_width (double, default: 0.25). Covariance of the abscissa axis of the Gaussian at the person heading.
• covariance_rear_height (double, default: 0.25). Covariance of the ordinate axis of the Gaussian at the person’s rear.
• covariance_rear_width (double, default: 0.25). Covariance of the abscissa axis of the Gaussian at the person’s rear.
• covariance_when_still (double, default: 0.25). Covariance employed to form a circular cost around the person when she is not moving.
• use_vel_factor (bool, default: True). Whether to use the current person velocity and the speed_factor_multiplier to modify the Gaussian at the person’s front or not.
• speed_factor_multiplier (double, default: 5.0). Factor with which to scale the velocity.
• use_passing (bool, default: True). Whether to use another Gaussian in the right side of the person in order to ease the passing maneuvers, for instance in corridors.
• covariance_right_height (double, default: 0.25). Covariance of the ordinate axis of the Gaussian at the person’s right side.
• covariance_right_width (double, default: 0.25). Covariance of the abscissa axis of the Gaussian at the person’s right side’.
• publish_occgrid (bool, default: False). Whether to publish an OccupancyGrid with the only the social costs or not.

NOTE: To be used as the previous ProxemicsLayer of ROS1, the user must set use_passing to False, use_vel_factor to True, and to use the same value for the parameters covariance_front_height, covariance_front_width, covariance_rear_height, covariance_rear_width and covariance_when_still.

Example of use in Nav2

In the XML configuration file of the Nav2 we must add (in the local_costmap and/or global_costmap section):

local_costmap:
  local_costmap:
    ros__parameters:
      plugins: [(other plugins..), "social_layer"]
      social_layer:
        plugin: "nav2_social_costmap_plugin::SocialLayer"
        people_topic: "/people"
        enabled: True
        cutoff: 10.0
        amplitude: 255.0
        publish_occgrid: False
        use_passing: True
        use_vel_factor: True
        speed_factor_multiplier: 5.0
        covariance_front_height: 0.4
        covariance_front_width: 0.25
        covariance_rear_height: 0.25
        covariance_rear_width: 0.25
        covariance_right_height: 0.3
        covariance_right_width: 0.2
        covariance_when_still: 0.25