Vector Pursuit Controller

This ROS2 Humble package contains a plugin for the Nav2 Controller Server that implements the Vector Pursuit path tracking algorithm. It leverages Screw Theory to achieve accurate path tracking and comes with active collision detection. The controller has a very low computational overhead and is very easy and simple to deploy. It tracks path orientation in a geometrically-meaningful way making it an ideal replacement for the Pure Pursuit Algorithm in scenarios where path following accuracy is vital. It consumes 15% of a single core on an ARM cortex-A72 CPU @ 1.8GHz and is designed to track paths at speeds upto 4.5m/s.

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/5a660fa0-054c-4b14-aecd-d9cfe471930b

Get Started

These are minimal, to-the-point instructions for experienced ROS2/Nav2 users. Beginners are recommended to read the Quickstart Tutorial for a simple 4-step example to try out the controller in a Gazebo simulation.

1. Install the package binaries.

    sudo apt-get install ros-humble-vector-pursuit-controller
    

1. Edit the controller_server parameters of the Nav2 stack to include the vector pursuit plugin along with its default configuration. Nav2’s controller server supports multiple controller plugins at the same time and instructions for setting it up can be found in the official docs.

2. Build the workspace and source it, then run the nav2 stack/controller server.

Features Offered

These are additional features on top of the core Vector Pursuit algorithm that extend its functionality. | Feature | Description | |———|————-| | Adaptive Lookahead Distance | The lookahead distance is used to find the target pose on the path. This target pose is used to guide the robot along the path. This distance can be scaled as per the robot’s velocity to ensure that the robot aims further along the path when moving at greater velocity. The adaptive lookahead distance is computed as the product of the robots current linear velocity and the value set in lookahead_time.| | Collision Aware Linear Velocity | The robot’s linear velocity is automatically scaled preemptively when in proximity to obstacles and completely halted when a collision is imminent. | | Approach Aware Linear Velocity | The robots linear velocity is automatically scaled when nearing a goal pose, this prevents overshoot. | | On Point Rotation | The controller will first rotate on point when attempting to chase a target pose at a heading which is more than the robots current heading by a configurable angle. | | Optional Reversing | The controller will output reverse velocity if the lookahead point is behind the robot (x coordinate of the lookahead point in the robot’s base_link is -ve). |

Configuration

Core Parameters

The following parameters tune the core path-tracking algorithm and are not needed by the additional features.

Feature Parameters

These parameters are used to tune and control the behaviour of | Feature | Parameter | Description | |———|———–|————-| | Adaptive Lookahead Distance | use_velocity_scaled_lookahead_dist | enable/disable | || min_lookahead_dist | Minimum lookahead distance. | || max_lookahead_dist | Maximum lookahead distance. | || lookahead_time | The time in seconds to integrate the current linear velocity to get the scaled lookahead distance | | Collision Aware Linear Velocity | use_collision_detection | Enable/disable collision detection. | || use_cost_regulated_linear_velocity_scaling | Enable/disable cost-regulated linear velocity scaling. | || inflation_cost_scaling_factor | Factor for inflation cost scaling. | || max_allowed_time_to_collision_up_to_target | Maximum time allowed for collision checking. | || cost_scaling_dist | Distance for cost-based velocity scaling. | || cost_scaling_gain | Gain factor for cost-based velocity scaling. | | Approach Aware Linear Velocity | approach_velocity_scaling_dist | The distance to goal at which velocity scaling will begin. Set to 0 to disable. | || min_approach_linear_velocity | The minimum velocity this scaling can produce. | | On Point Rotation | use_rotate_to_heading | Enable/disable rotate-to-heading behavior. Will override reversing if both are enabled. | || rotate_to_heading_angular_vel | Angular velocity for rotating to heading. | || rotate_to_heading_min_angle | Minimum angle to trigger rotate-to-heading behavior. | || max_angular_accel | Maximum angular acceleration. | | Optional Reversing | allow_reversing | Will move in reverse if the lookahead point is behind the robot. |

Default Parameters

```yaml controller_server: ros__parameters: use_sim_time: True controller_frequency: 20.0 min_x_velocity_threshold: 0.001 min_y_velocity_threshold: 0.5 min_theta_velocity_threshold: 0.001 failure_tolerance: 0.3 progress_checker_plugin: “progress_checker” goal_checker_plugins: [“general_goal_checker”] controller_plugins: [“FollowPath”]

# Progress checker parameters
progress_checker:
  plugin: "nav2_controller::SimpleProgressChecker"
  required_movement_radius: 0.25
  movement_time_allowance: 10.0

# Goal checker parameters
general_goal_checker:
  plugin: "nav2_controller::SimpleGoalChecker"
  xy_goal_tolerance: 0.25
  yaw_goal_tolerance: 0.25
  stateful: True

FollowPath:
  plugin: "vector_pursuit_controller::VectorPursuitController"
  k: 5.0
  desired_linear_vel: 0.5

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