A simple demo of the Fleet Management System with Zenoh

[DennyKuo0809]

Hi, community,

We are working on zenoh_autoware_fms, a showcase project as the FMS (fleet management system) prototype of Autoware based on Zenoh. The core is developed with Zenoh's Python API and leveraged the project zenoh_bridge_ros2dds to handle the communication with ROS topics of Autoware. zenoh-bridge-ros2dds adopts the feature "namespace" to separate identical ROS topics in different Autowares, allowing the FMS to communicate with particular vehicles easily.

As we can see from the diagram above, multiple Autoware connects to the FMS server via Zenoh, and zenoh-bridge-ros2dds integrates the underlying DDS of Autoware with the Zenoh system.

The functions provided by the FMS server including:

• List Vehicles
  • List all vehicles in the Zenoh network.
  • Show the status of vehicles, e.g. gear, turn, velocity or steering.
• Remote Driving
  • Manual drive the Autoware vehicle.
  • A panel with several controllers, e.g. steering wheel, controller to set gear and velocity.
• Set goal for the vehicle on Map
  • Set goals for vehicles.
  • Engage vehicle, and route to the goal by mission planning of Autoware.

The video above demonstrates how the FMS server manages two vehicles.
We are using Carla to simulate two vehicles controlled by Autoware, which is mentioned in this article.
For your convenience, here are some important timestamps:

• 0'34": Two instances of Autoware are launched, creating two vehicles at different locations on the same map.
• 1'15": The FMS server displays the status of both vehicles.
• 1'27": The FMS server sets a goal for each vehicle, engaging them to drive autonomously using Autoware's mission planning.
• 3'16": The user manually drives the vehicles via the interface provided by the FMS server.

The tutorial for this project is here.

Special thanks to my senior coworker, evshary, with the designing of comprehensive architecture and timely advice about Zenoh and Autoware. In addition, he is the primary designer of autoware_carla_launch, which serves as a crucial foundation for this project.