Errors with Informed RRT* OMPL Planner in MoveIt! with Baxter
I'm using ROS Kinetic with a Baxter Gazebo simulator and the baxter_moveit_config package, running on Ubuntu 16.04 with kernel 4.15.0-42-generic. I have OMPL version 1.4.2 and MoveIt! kinetic-devel branch both installed from source.
I am working on motion planning experiments on the simulated Baxter robot in MoveIt, using various OMPL default planners. So far I have had success registering and running planning tests in my various environments using RRT-Connect, RRT, and BIT. Today I went to try and start testing Informed RRT* by registering it as a new default planner in MoveIt, and updating my Baxter ompl_planning.yaml file accordingly. The catkin workspace builds fine and I can launch the whole planning scene using the usual baxter_grippers.launch file in the baxter_moveit_config package. Informed RRT* is successfully loaded as the planner that will be used for any motion plan requests.
However, when I try to create a planning request from the MoveitCommander Python API (as I have for all my tests) I get a variety of ROS Error messages in the console and the planner immediately returns a failure and moves on to the next planning request. Strangely, this behavior is not consistent -- MoveIt is occasionally able to successfully start and complete a full motion plan request with Informed RRT*, about 10% of the time. I cannot currently see any correlation with the planning requests where it succeeds versus where it fails and throws errors.
Below are some examples of the errors and warnings I obtain (in no particular order, these all show up somewhat randomly and the errors all cause the planner to fail).
[ERROR] [1550708380.811518404, 19661.729000000]: Exception caught executing *next* adapter 'Fix Start State Bounds': PathLengthDirectInfSampler: There must be at least 1 start and and 1 goal state when the informed sampler is created.
[ERROR] [1550708380.800947757, 19661.720000000]: Exception caught executing *final* adapter 'Fix Start State Path Constraints': PathLengthDirectInfSampler: There must be at least 1 start and and 1 goal state when the informed sampler is created.
[ERROR] [1550708380.790290485, 19661.711000000]: Exception caught executing *next* adapter 'Fix Start State In Collision': PathLengthDirectInfSampler: There must be at least 1 start and and 1 goal state when the informed sampler is created.
[ERROR] [1550708380.775913789, 19661.698000000]: Exception caught executing *next* adapter 'Fix Workspace Bounds': PathLengthDirectInfSampler: There must be at least 1 start and and 1 goal state when the informed sampler is created.
[ERROR] [1550713422.840970844, 61.159000000]: InformedRRTstar: There are no valid initial states!
[ WARN] [1550713422.840896038, 61.159000000]: InformedRRTstar: Skipping invalid start state (invalid bounds)
[ WARN] [1550713422.743253679, 61.071000000]: Goal sampling thread never did any work.
They all generally have to do with the MoveIt planning adapters and the start state of the robot. However, throughout all of my experiments I have used exactly the same start state (the neutral pose the Baxter starts in when the Gazebo world is launched) and it has never had an issue when using the other planners. I have also ...
