potential_fields ROS Package Overview

This package hosts the pfield_manager node, which orchestrates the core library usage to interface with ROS:

• Maintains instances of PotentialField, MotionPlugin, and the plugin-provided IKSolver.
• Optionally initializes PF kinematics from a URDF path (parameter urdf_file_path) to estimate robot extent and populate obstacles.
• Publishes RViz markers (goal/query triads, obstacles, influence volumes, velocity vectors) and a planned EE path.
• Exposes a path-planning service and a convenience service for a local autonomy vector.

Topics and services

Publishers

• pfield/markers (visualization_msgs/MarkerArray): goal, query pose, obstacles, influence zones, velocity vectors.
• pfield/planned_path (nav_msgs/Path): end-effector path from the last planning request.

Subscribers

• pfield/planning_goal_pose (geometry_msgs/PoseStamped): sets the PF goal pose.
• pfield/obstacles (potential_fields_interfaces/ObstacleArray): external obstacles; any node may publish here.
• pfield/query_pose (geometry_msgs/Pose): live “query pose” to visualize field flow.

  Services

• pfield/plan_path (potential_fields_interfaces/srv/PlanPath): plan a path from a start pose to the current goal.
• pfield/compute_autonomy_vector (potential_fields_interfaces/srv/ComputeAutonomyVector): compute the limited twist at a pose.

Notes on robot geometry

• You can supply obstacles directly via pfield/obstacles from any node.
• Alternatively, provide a URDF path to the node via urdf_file_path; the PF library will initialize PFKinematics, estimate robot extent (for influence distance), and can update geometry-derived obstacles as planning progresses.

Copyright Notice Sharwin Patil 2025

Changelog for package potential_fields

1.0.2 (2026-04-04)

• Clarified Obstacle type's geometry fields
• Moved HSVtoRGB to pfield_manager instead
• Estimate Robot Geometry using Ellipsoids and Control Points for smooth WBV Repulsion (#42) Co-authored-by: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <<noreply@anthropic.com>>
• 40 test main branch ruleset (testing Issue #40) (#41)
• README edits and CONTRIBUTING.md
• Created visualization method to visualize both TS and WBV
• Fixed CSV bugs and tested demo1 and demo2, TS planning has problems
• 1.0.1
• Rename Packages (#35)
• Enabling Github Workflow for building and testing repo (#33)
• Successfully migrated all unit tests to [pfield_library]{.title-ref} (#32)
• December Final Demos (#26)
• Use Robot Dynamics to convert Joint Torques to Joint Velocities (#24)
• Independent pfield C++ Library (#22)
• Updating ComputeAutonomyVector
• Collision Avoidance between robot links and environment obstacles (#21)
• XArm 7-DoF Arm Demo (#19)
• Dynamic D* Threshold (#20)
• Aligned AttractiveMoment Doc with Implementation
• Fixing Rotational Attraction (#18)
• Editing gains
• Fixing goal and query pose visualizations
• Fixing plotting functions and organizing code (#16) Co-authored-by: Copilot <<175728472+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>>
• Adding Reference to Principles of Robot Motion and Updating PF Equations (#15)
• Updating repulsive force computation from Choset text
• Repulsive force piecewise equation includes equals to QStar
• Merged in extra fixes
• Comments cleanup
• Using RK4 for integrating position from PF Twist (#13)
• Tested another demo with plots
• Docstrings for new functions
• First pass at RK4
• Fixing up tests
• Prototyping path planning (#11)
• Refactored influence scale and mesh collision (#12)
• Merge branch 'main' of github.com:argallab/pfields_2025
• Merged RobotParser into PFieldManager (#10)
• Current TODO
• Pinocchio for Obstacles and Motion Constraints (#9)
• PlanPath Service Demo (#7)
• Planning "World" for path-planning with robot (#6)
• Motion Interface (#5)
• Update license to Apache 2.0
• Updating email to northwestern email for packages
• Updating functions to write to folders
• Documentation
• Updating robot parser targets
• typo
• Custom service to plan path in PF
• Merge pull request #4 from argallab/demo-package Example Package
• Changing error to warn
• Launch arguments and parsing raw URDF
• Created robot parser node to listen for the transforms and parse the URDF collision objects
• Typo
• RViz sets fixed frame from user
• Moving static transforms to demo repository
• Updating build info
• Removing extra forward slash
• Another delta robot typo
• Fixing typo with delta robot include dir
• Created interpolate and integration functions for PField linear velocity and angular velocity
• A bit of hacking to get obstacles where the URDF defines them
• Created TF from world
• Attempting to fix TF listener and collision objects

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