# inscribed and circumscribed radii of the robot used despite footprint being set

Hi,

I've declared my robot's footprint in my common costmap params:

footprint: [[-0.7,-0.45], [0.70,-0.45],[0.70, 0.45],[-0.70, 0.45]]


and so I haven't set inscribed or circumscribed radii, because those can be figured out from my footprint.

Nevertheless, when I run move_base I get this warning:

[ WARN] [1367908257.219539023, 2.000000000]: You have set an inflation radius that is less than the inscribed and circumscribed radii of the robot. This is dangerous and could casue the robot to hit obstacles. Please change your inflation radius setting appropraitely.


Any idea why? Can I safely ignore this warning?

Thanks,

Ernest

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This is a bogus warning stemming from a bug in costmap2d. You can safely ignore it. (you can sometimes safely ignore it, see update below). When you set a robot footprint, costmap2d computes inscribed and circumscribed radii from the footprint, so you it doesn't make sense to set these parameters yourself. However, the warning is issued before the computation. I've issued a pull request to fix that:

(I've also included your change in wording, David.)

Update: I just realized that what I wrote above is not quite correct. By "bogus warning" I mean that costmap2d issues that warning even when your inflation radius is safe; my pull request fixes that.

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Thank you Martin.

( 2013-05-09 14:57:46 -0500 )edit

If you don't set the value of inflation_radius, it will be automatically set to 0.55. The error message probably should read "You have set an inflation radius that is less than the inscribed OR circumscribed radii...". Since the circumscribed radius is .7 in this case, an inflation radius of 0.55 is problematic.

Quick Fix: set the inflation radius to >= .55.

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Math is hard. It should be .83 as Martin points out.

( 2013-05-09 07:43:31 -0500 )edit