LCR Autonomous Ground Task Guide Level 2 - directedmachines/customer-support GitHub Wiki

Table of Contents

Overview

This is the second tutorial on autonomous tasks. It covers selecting and dragging the position of a work area plus the use of user defined obstacles (exclusion areas) and more settings relating to work areas.

Safety

Please follow the recommendations below, it is critical you do so to reduce the chance of harm to living things and structures

  • Design work areas so they do not include known obstacles.
  • Add exclusion areas around known obstacles, with a 10ft margin between work area and paths, from the obstacles
  • Always observe the robot the first time you design a work area and be ready to stop it and adjust the work area and path if its getting too close to obstacles
  • Do not rely on the robot dynamic obstacle avoidance: The robot can not always see things, especially things close to ground or skinny posts.
  • Do not enable autonomy in areas where there are people and animals

Prerequisites

Troubleshooting

The AGT User Interface will display various warnings to aid the operator in resolving potentially unsafe plans, diagnosing issues with obstacles and robot health. Please review the AGT Troubleshooting Guide and search that page for any warnings you encounter, before contacting support.

Exclusion areas

An exclusion area is a polygon with any number of sides that describes an area that the robot should avoid.

Safety Note - Due to GPS noise or limitation of other sensors, always draw a larger area, one with at least six foot safety margin around the physical obstacle or region you want the LCR to avoid. The LCR will keep at least six feet away but obstacle avoidance parameters can be changed by the user so careful trial and error is required.

Best practices

Leave a 10ft gap between robot and obstacle from all work areas and waypoint paths Place exclusion zones outside work areas. Create multiple work areas, or a complex polygon, if you need to wrap around an exclusion area on the interior of a work area Always monitor the LCR the first time you do autonomous navigation in a new area. Drive the LCR manually around obstacles or zones you want to exclude, if the satellite imagery is out of date, then use the LCR motion trace to create the exclusion area. Note that when using https://directedtmachines.com/dashboard/ui to edit your plans, you must "Synchronize" once you return to the LCR. On the robot's AGT UI select "Edit", then "Synchronize" to import the plans from the cloud.

Video of drawing an exclusion area plus work areas

Please also review section below about multiple areas

Adjusting Position of work and exclusion areas

Before any work area or exclusion area can be modified, you must select it, by clicking / touching it first. The corners will be highlighted. Touch area again to bring up a dialog box with area settings.

Touch / click on the Edit button to "unfreeze" the plan

Touch / click on the gray/transparent part of the work area polygon, not its center.

Dialog comes up with settings. Close dialog

Touch and drag anywhere on work area (again, avoid the center arrow icon) to drag the area

Touch and drag any corner circle to adjust the area shape.

When done with changes touch / click the Freeze button

Video with area position adjustment, disabling motion path so area can be selected

Multiple Work Areas

Open work areas can be any polygonal shape and size, but best practices follow this approach for an work area:

  • Draw your exclusion areas first.
  • Draw a Parameter Domain to cover the entirety of your Work Area. The parameter domain is more robust and will ensure fewer incidents when mowing a Work Area. The parameter domain will also help prevents false positives are you are able to more accurately describe your obstacle avoidance policies.
  • Always ensure your Parameter Domain extends beyond the expected work area.
  • Parameter Domains explained here
  • Then break the remaining work area down into 4-sided polygons, without any angles that are too acute.
  • Leave 2-3m or so gaps between these work areas and the initial exclusion/hazard areas.
  • Polygon sides should be limited to 50m x 50m maximum, otherwise you lose too much progress when adjusting boundaries mid-mow.
  • Link the polygons like waypoints, in an order that does not send the LCR through an exclusion area while going from one to the next.
  • Bad and good example comparison:
    open area polygons image
    • The above image shows the use of a parameter domain in a rough area that will have obstacles.
  • Always closely monitor the first perimeter pass in a work area, to make sure boundaries are safe and where you want them in the real world.
  • When rough mowing open areas for the first time, the robot may stop on a false positive. If this occurs, it will say "Unsafe to move" or "IDLE". In this case, do the following:
    • Open Manual UI
    • Draw the parameter domain to encompass your work areas.
    • If color image loads, but you see close obstacles that you can mow down, its a false positive
    • with OA disabled in Manual, go to AGT, and resume autonomy, if you are doing Open Area mowing with obstacles disabled
    • Screenshot: WY false obstacles on first open pass Here you can see a scenario in which the obstacles in front of the camera can make it believe the camera image is corrupted/unreliable.

Creating a new plan

You can add new plans at any time using the currently selected plan as a template, or creating a new empty plan

Click anywhere on the map without an existing waypoint or area

Click on the "Create Plan" button

A new dialog opens, with an input box to type the plan name, and two buttons for creating a copy of current plan or a empty new plan

Video of plan creation steps

Next Steps