extrapolation error of local cost map in navigation

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asked 2012-08-04 05:49:14 -0500

psykokwak
39 ●5 ●6 ●6

updated 2012-08-04 05:52:24 -0500

Hi all, I'm following the navigation tutorial with my differential wheeled robot. I build my map with hector slam and now i'm trying to explore it with the navigation stack but I have the following error when I try to send the robot at some Goal :

[ERROR] [1344094708.876267784]: Extrapolation Error: Unable to lookup transform, cache is empty, when looking up transform from frame [/odom] to frame [/map]
[ERROR] [1344094708.876364007]: Global Frame: /odom Plan Frame size 98: /map
[ WARN] [1344094708.876424927]: Could not transform the global plan to the frame of the controller

If I replace the "global_frame" parameter from "/odom" to whatever (like "/map") in the "local_costmap_params.yaml" configuration file, the error disapears but it does not work...

My tf tree seems good : image description

And a tf_echo seems good :

psykokwak@robot:~/ros/workspace$ rosrun tf tf_echo /map /odom
At time 1344095433.661
- Translation: [-0.008, 0.011, 0.000]
- Rotation: in Quaternion [0.000, 0.000, 0.000, 1.000]
            in RPY [0.000, -0.000, 0.001]
At time 1344095434.660
- Translation: [-0.007, 0.009, 0.000]
- Rotation: in Quaternion [0.000, 0.000, 0.000, 1.000]
            in RPY [0.000, -0.000, 0.000]
At time 1344095435.659
- Translation: [-0.007, 0.009, 0.000]
- Rotation: in Quaternion [0.000, 0.000, 0.000, 1.000]
            in RPY [0.000, -0.000, 0.000]
At time 1344095435.926
- Translation: [-0.005, 0.008, 0.000]
- Rotation: in Quaternion [0.000, 0.000, 0.000, 1.000]
            in RPY [0.000, -0.000, 0.001]

So, I have no idea about the origin of my problem :(

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No one knows ? :(

psykokwak ( 2012-08-06 08:55:04 -0500 )edit

I have the same problem, but only when I launch the robot_pose_ekf stack... Whitout that stack everything works perfectly. But I don't know how to solve it :( Did you found what was wrong?

g.aterido ( 2012-10-23 21:45:28 -0500 )edit

sorry...... I am now encountering such problem..... do you figure it out!!????

Gazer ( 2013-06-13 07:49:38 -0500 )edit

I have same problem, any help?

Reza ( 2013-07-11 01:29:48 -0500 )edit

I have the same problem and cannot resolve it. Any help would be very much appreciated. My thread on this problem can be found here: http://answers.ros.org/question/63360/extrapolation-error-using-hector_mapping-move_base/

Huibuh ( 2013-08-12 20:43:59 -0500 )edit

Have same problem too!

AbuIbra ( 2013-11-01 16:30:28 -0500 )edit

Ditto, except I'm using gmapping instead of hector_slam

BlitherPants ( 2014-01-14 10:15:06 -0500 )edit

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answered 2014-01-23 19:59:23 -0500

Huibuh

385 ●18 ●27 ●27

Hello All,

I know what the origin of the problem is, and how to (at least temporarily) fix it.

The Problem

When using AMCL to provide the map->odom tf-transform to move_base, everything works fine. This is because AMCL 'future dates' the provided transform (see last sentence here: http://wiki.ros.org/amcl#Transforms).

However, when using hector_slam for localization instead of AMCL, the provided map->odom tf-transform is not future dated. This leads to move_base throwing the mentioned error:

Extrapolation Error: Unable to lookup transform, cache is empty, when looking up transform from frame [/odom] to frame [/map]

How to temporarily fix it

Check out https://github.com/tu-darmstadt-ros-pkg/hector_slam.git (catkin branch) into your own ROS workspace and modify Line 347 in file HectorMappingRos.cpp (direct link https://github.com/tu-darmstadt-ros-pkg/hector_slam/blob/catkin/hector_mapping/src/HectorMappingRos.cpp) as follows:

# Replace the original line 347 in HectorMappingRos.cpp
tfB_->sendTransform( tf::StampedTransform (map_to_odom_, scan.header.stamp, p_map_frame_, p_odom_frame_));

# ...with these two lines
ros::Duration future_date_duration(0.3F);
tfB_->sendTransform( tf::StampedTransform (map_to_odom_, scan.header.stamp  + future_date_duration, p_map_frame_, p_odom_frame_));

This future dates the tf-transform published by hector_mapping by 0.3s. Then compile the package and re-run your experiment. In my case, this got rid of the error messages.

But this has some disadvantages:

The delay of 0.3s can be noted in the navigation/localization performance of hector_mapping in conjunction with move_base. You can also see the updates in rviz lag behind.
Patched hector_mapping is no permanent solution.

@BlitherPants I suppose it is the same reason why gmapping throws the same errors when used together with move_base.

Suggested permanent fix

I can see two options:

move_base has to be changed so it also accepts non-future dated map->odom transforms OR
hector_slam and gmapping have to be modified to provide future dated map->odom transforms

I suggest we get the follwing people involved in this discussion:

'@David Lu' (AMCL + move_base maintainer)

'@Stefan Kohlbrecher' (hector_slam author)

'@Johannes Meyer' (hector_slam maintainer)

'@Brian Gerkey' (gmapping author)

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Wow, thanks for the detailed answer! I'll have to see if I can poke around in the source code of gmapping and get back to you...

BlitherPants ( 2014-01-24 02:06:55 -0500 )edit

This iooks like a bug in move_base to me. Future-dating a transform that is based on timestamped laser (and odometry) data is wrong (even if the error will be small for practical applications so that it won't break things). Sounds like there's simply a waitForTransform missing.

Stefan Kohlbrecher ( 2014-01-27 05:14:54 -0500 )edit

It looks like the error is happening in TrajectoryPlannerROS (called by move_base, called by gmapping), in the function "transformGlobalPlan" in goal_functions.cpp. Inside this function is a lookupTransform but no waitForTransform. Wonder if that's the problem? My tf skills are still being built...

BlitherPants ( 2014-01-27 07:06:18 -0500 )edit

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answered 2014-07-07 14:30:31 -0500

Manolis Chiou
70 ●4 ●6 ●12

Very good solution! Saved me a lot of research as I need to use hector slam with move_base. However, I think there is no need for the duration to be so high. In my case it works with 0.09-0.1 secs. Looking on how gmapping works with move_base I saw the following lines:

ros::Time tf_expiration = ros::Time::now() + ros::Duration(tf_delay_);
 tfB_->sendTransform( tf::StampedTransform (map_to_odom_, tf_expiration, map_frame_, odom_frame_));

with tf_delay to be:

 if(!private_nh_.getParam("tf_delay", tf_delay_))
    tf_delay_ = transform_publish_period;

In the case of hector_slam I think the tranform period is the published /scan period and it depends on the laser. In my case with the hokuyo urg-04lx is 0.1 sec (10hz).

Works fine so far with move_base. The only thing i have noticed is more cpu load by hector_slam.

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