🚗 Self-Driving-Car-CARLA-ROS2 🚀

A project to develop a self-driving car using the CARLA simulator and ROS2 CARLA bridge.

Here, we are aiming to build a software stack step by step to drive a car in the CARLA simulator autonomously with ROS2 Humble.

⚙️ Software Requirements

1. Ubuntu 22.04
2. ROS2 Humble
3. CARLA 0.9.15
4. CARLA ROS2 HUMBLE bridge
5. Python 3.10.12

🤔 What is a self-driving car?

A self-driving car is a vehicle equipped with sensors, software, and control systems that enable it to navigate and drive itself without human input. It perceives its environment (roads, traffic, pedestrians, obstacles), makes decisions, and controls motion (steering, acceleration, braking) to reach a destination safely and efficiently.

Self-driving cars use technologies like:

1. Sensors: cameras, lidar, radar, ultrasonic sensors.
2. Software: perception algorithms, planning, control, and decision-making systems.
3. AI/ML: for object detection, path planning, behavior prediction.
4. Connectivity: GPS, HD maps, sometimes V2X (vehicle-to-everything) communication.

🛠️ What do we need to build a self-driving car?

1. A vehicle
2. Required sensors attached to the vehicle.
3. A control system/master processing unit.
4. Actuators to control the vehicle based on the control signals from the controller.
5. A world to test the vehicle with different road conditions and scenarios.

As we know, creating a test vehicle with the above requirements is expensive, and testing the vehicle with different scenarios is not an easy job. Instead, the easy way is to use a simulator where we can create a vehicle with complex sensors within a virtual world.

In this project, we are going to use the CARLA SIMULATOR – a really heavy simulator (consider a performance laptop/workstation). And we can read the sensor data from this vehicle with the Python API/ROS bridge. Also, we can control the vehicle with the API/ROS bridge.

⚠️ Prerequisite

1. A PC with Ubuntu 22.04 OS installed (with dedicated graphics).

2. ROS2 Humble installed.

   Follow the official page of ROS2 for installation: https://docs.ros.org/en/humble/Installation/Ubuntu-Install-Debs.html

3. CARLA 0.9.15.0 simulator installed.

   create A folder named 'CARLA_PROJECT' for all data

   mkdir CARLA_PROJECT
   

   create workspace folder for carla ros2 bridge

   mkdir CARLA_PROJECT/ros2_bridge_ws
   

   create workspace folder for our project software

   mkdir CARLA_PROJECT/carla_ros2_ws
   

   Download the binary installation file from the CARLA official GitHub page and extract it to your CARLA_PROJECT folder.

   cd CARLA_PROJECT
   wget wget https://carla-releases.s3.us-east-005.backblazeb2.com/Linux/CARLA_0.9.15.tar.gz
   mkdir  CARLA_0.9.15 
   tar -xzvf CARLA_0.9.15.tar.gz -C CARLA_0.9.15
   

4. CARLA ROS2 bridge installed.

   Follow the link for CARLA ROS2 bridge installation: https://github.com/ttgamage/carla-ros-bridge Open a new terminal and clone the repository

      mkdir -p ~/CARLA_PROJECT/ros2_bridge_ws/ros-bridge && cd ~/CARLA_PROJECT/ros2_bridge_ws/ros-bridge
      git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/ttgamage/carla-ros-bridge.git
      mv carla-ros-bridge src
   

   Set up ROS environment and install dependencies.

      conda deactivate
      source /opt/ros/humble/setup.bash
      rosdep update
      rosdep install --from-paths src --ignore-src -r
   

   Build the ROS bridge workspace using colcon.

      colcon build --symlink-install
   

5. Install this repository to your WORKING DIRECTORY:

   Open a new terminal and navigate to 'CARLA_PROJECT/carla_ros2_ws' folder

   conda deactivate
   cd CARLA_PROJECT/carla_ros2_ws
   mkdir src
   cd src
   git clone [email protected]:asujaykk/Self-Driving-Car-CARLA-ROS2.git
   

   Build the package and source it:

   cd ..
   colcon build
   source install/setup.bash

🚦 PHASE-1: A SIMPLE ROUTE FOLLOWING VEHICLE (WAYPOINT FOLLOWER)

1. In this phase, the basic objective of a self-driving car will be implemented.
2. The basic objective is to drive a car from a starting point to a destination point.
3. Here, we are not bothering about collisions, traffic rules, or complex maneuvers.

🕹️ Step-by-step operation to do it with CARLA, ROS2, CARLA ROS2 bridge

1. Start CARLA server and source CARLA ROS2 bridge.
2. Spawn a vehicle.
3. Use a route planner to find the best route from the vehicle's location to the destination point.
4. Use a controller to control the vehicle to follow the route.
5. Use Navigation HMI to select the destination location on the map.

Please follow procedure mentioned in PHASE-1_readme.MD

Video tutorial

https://youtu.be/jFORY41LDHo?si=h1kVquHgi4Zu2OJq