Technical Questions Regarding Autoware Middleware, Localization, Perception, Planning, and Control

[dIronmanb]

Hello, I’ve been using Autoware extensively in my research projects and truly admire the openness and sophistication of your platform. I deeply appreciate the Autoware community’s continuous effort in developing such a powerful and modular system for autonomous vehicles.

I have been studying Autoware Universe and would like to ask a few detailed technical questions to deepen my understanding:

System information

• OS Platform: Linux Ubuntu 22.04
• Autoware installed from source (release/v1.0)

1. Middleware

As Autoware operates on ROS 2, which uses DDS as middleware, I’d like to confirm:

• Does Autoware primarily rely on socket-based communication, or does it also provide other inter-process communication methods such as shared memory?
• Additionally, does Autoware’s middleware support V2X (Vehicle-to-Everything) communication, or would that require an external interface?

2. Localization

In the localization pipeline, both ndt_scan_matcher and ekf_localizer use GNSS data as well as odometry information.

• Are these GNSS and EKF results used mainly as initialization inputs for NDT matching, or are they continuously fused throughout operation?
  (Reference diagram: Autoware Overall Node Diagram)

3. Perception

In the Autoware node diagram, camera detection modules exist but camera-based tracking is not explicitly shown.

• Does this mean that tracking is primarily handled by the LiDAR detection and LiDAR tracking modules?

4. Planning

I understand that Autoware’s planning module mainly consists of two high-level scenarios: lane driving and parking.
When running a lane driving scenario:

• It seems that multiple sub-scenarios (e.g., lane keeping, lane change, etc.) may run simultaneously.
  How does Autoware determine which sub-scenario is the most appropriate at runtime?
• Once a sub-scenario is selected, is the output of this module the selected scenario itself or the generated trajectory?
• At the end of the planning process, does the scenario selector take trajectories from both lane driving and parking scenarios and output one selected trajectory?
• Are the lane driving and parking scenarios executed in parallel by separate nodes?

5. Control

The documentation mentions:

• Longitudinal controller: PID
• Lateral controller: Pure Pursuit, MPC

Is there also a controller that simultaneously handles both longitudinal and lateral control, or are they always handled separately?

Thank you very much for your time and for maintaining such an excellent open-source project.

[maxime-clem]

Does Autoware primarily rely on socket-based communication, or does it also provide other inter-process communication methods such as shared memory?

Yes shared memory can be enabled when using ComposableNode (see https://docs.ros.org/en/humble/Concepts/Intermediate/About-Composition.html).

Additionally, does Autoware’s middleware support V2X (Vehicle-to-Everything) communication, or would that require an external interface?

It requires some ROS2 interface yes.

[maxime-clem]

Does this mean that tracking is primarily handled by the LiDAR detection and LiDAR tracking modules?

Yes, but there are some packages available to work with cameras (e.g., https://autowarefoundation.github.io/autoware_universe/main/perception/autoware_camera_streampetr/).

[maxime-clem]

4. Planning

Probably this page will answer most of your questions: https://autowarefoundation.github.io/autoware-documentation/main/design/autoware-architecture/planning/

[maxime-clem]

Is there also a controller that simultaneously handles both longitudinal and lateral control, or are they always handled separately?

There is no such controller available.

[maxime-clem]

Are these GNSS and EKF results used mainly as initialization inputs for NDT matching, or are they continuously fused throughout operation?

GNSS is only used for initialization.
If by "EKF result" you mean the outputs of ekf_localizer, then this is used continuously to update the estimated pose of the ego vehicle.