Using two static layered costmaps to make restricted areas

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Maybe a different and more flexible approach is to write your own costmap layer and give it a geometry_message::polygon as input for the restricted areas. Like this you don't have to define the areas before the navigation starts, but you can change the restricted areas during navigation.

Take a look at the create a new layer tutorial in the wiki. Even though i must admit, that it is very low level. For more information i recommend the costmap layer package from David Lu as a reference.

I did something similar for road navigation to prevent the robot from entering the left lane when the right one is free.

I think this is a good way to add obstacle information.

To make a second map public with a topic other than "map", use the map_topic parameter.

map_topic (string, default: "map") This parameter is useful when you have multiple costmap instances within a single node that you want to use different static maps. New in navigation 1.3.1

Stacking cost maps can be achieved by using the use_maximum parameter.

use_maximum (bool, default: false) Only matters if the static layer is not the bottom layer. If true, only the maximum value will be written to the master costmap.

The above is taken from the documentation at http://wiki.ros.org/costmap_2d/hydro/....

For example, you can use the following

global_costmap configuration yaml file

global_costmap:
  plugins: 
    - {name: static_layer1, type: "costmap_2d::StaticLayer"}
    - {name: static_layer2, type: "costmap_2d::StaticLayer"}

  static_layer1:
    map_topic: "map" 

  static_layer2:
    map_topic: "map2"
    use_maximum: true

Excerpt from launch file

<node name="static_layer1" pkg="map_server" type="map_server" args="$(find XXX)/maps/YYY.yaml"/>
<node name="static_layer2" pkg="map_server" type="map_server" args="$(find XXX)/maps/ZZZ.yaml">
    <remap from="map" to="map2"/>
</node>