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Follow-me with ADBSCAN on Aaeon Robot¶

This tutorial provides instructions for running the ADBSCAN-based Follow-me algorithm from Robotics SDK using Intel® RealSense™ camera input. Validation of the the algorithm was performed on a custom Aaeon robot. The Intel® RealSense™ camera publishes to /camera/depth/color/points topic. The adbscan_sub_node subscribes to the corresponding topic, detects the obstacle array, computes the robot’s velocity and publishes to the /cmd_vel topic of type geometry_msg/msg/Twist. This twist message consists of the updated angular and linear velocity of the robot to follow the target, which can be subsequently subscribed by a robot-driver.

Getting Started¶

Install the Deb package¶

Install the ros-humble-follow-me-tutorial Deb package from the Intel® Robotics SDK APT repository.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install ros-humble-follow-me-tutorial

Run Demo¶

Run the following script to launch the Follow-me application tutorial on the Aaeon robot.

source /opt/ros/humble/setup.bash
/opt/ros/humble/share/tutorial-follow-me/scripts/follow-me.sh

After executing the above command, you can observe that the robot detecting the target within a tracking radius (~0.5 - 0.7 m) and subsequently following the moving target person.

Note

There are reconfigurable parameters in /opt/ros/humble/share/tutorial-follow-me/params/followme_adbscan_RS_params.yaml file. The user can modify the parameters depending on the respective robot, sensor configuration and environments (if required) before running the tutorial. Find a brief description of the parameters in the following table.

Configurable Parameters¶
`Lidar_type`	Type of the point cloud sensor. For Intel® RealSense™ camera and LIDAR inputs, the default value is set to `RS` and `2D`, respectively.
`Lidar_topic`	Name of the topic publishing point cloud data.
`Verbose`	If this flag is set to `True`, the locations of the detected target objects will be printed as the screen log.
`subsample_ratio`	This is the downsampling rate of the original point cloud data. Default value = 15 (i.e. every 15-th data in the original point cloud is sampled and passed to the core ADBSCAN algorithm).
`x_filter_back`	Point cloud data with x-coordinate > `x_filter_back` are filtered out (positive x direction lies in front of the robot).
`y_filter_left`, `y_filter_right`	Point cloud data with y-coordinate > `y_filter_left` and y-coordinate < `y_filter_right` are filtered out (positive y-direction is to the left of robot and vice versa).
`z_filter`	Point cloud data with z-coordinate < `z_filter` will be filtered out. This option will be ignored in case of 2D Lidar.
`Z_based_ground_removal`	Filtering in the z-direction will be applied only if this value is non-zero. This option will be ignored in case of 2D Lidar.
`base`, `coeff_1`, `coeff_2`, `scale_factor`	These are the coefficients used to calculate adaptive parameters of the ADBSCAN algorithm. These values are pre-computed and recommended to keep unchanged.
`init_tgt_loc`	This value describes the initial target location. The person needs to be at a distance of `init_tgt_loc` in front of the robot to initiate the motor.
`max_dist`	This is the maximum distance that the robot can follow. If the person moves at a distance > `max_dist`, the robot will stop following.
`min_dist`	This value describes the safe distance the robot will always maintain with the target person. If the person moves closer than `min_dist`, the robot stops following.
`max_linear`	Maximum linear velocity of the robot.
`max_angular`	Maximum angular velocity of the robot.
`max_frame_blocked`	The robot will keep following the target for `max_frame_blocked` number of frames in the event of a temporary occlusion.
`tracking_radius`	The robot will keep following the target as long as the current target location = previous location +/- `tracking_radius`

Troubleshooting¶

Failed to install Deb package: Please make sure to run sudo apt update before installing the necessary Deb packages.
You may stop the demo anytime by pressing ctrl-C.
If the robot rotates more than intended at each step, try reducing the parameter max_angular in the parameter file.
For general robot issues, go to: Troubleshooting for Robot Tutorials .
If the motor controller board does not start, restart the robot.