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3D Camera Obstacle Avoidance

This example demonstrates how to use a 3D camera together with ISAAC Nvblox and Nav2 to enable navigation and obstacle avoidance on an AMR platform.

Install​

warning

Make sure your target system satisfies the following conditions:

  • Advantech platforms
  • At least 3 GB hard drive free space
  • An active Internet connection is required
  • Use the English language environment in Ubuntu OS

  • After selecting and installing 3D Camera Obstacle Avoidance by following the instructions in the installer instructions. You will find the isaac_ros_kit folder under /usr/local/Advantech/ros/container/ros-demokit/

  • Navigate to the folder and run the following command:

./launch_isaac.sh advanced_examples/amr_demo
  • The 3D Camera Obstacle Avoidance will be displayed automatically:
tip

The first time you run this program, it needs to download necessary files, which will take some time.

Configuration Guide​

This example demonstrates the workflow of using a 3D camera with ISAAC Nvblox and Nav2 for navigation and obstacle avoidance.It utilizes the following components:

  • A 3D camera mounted on an AMR
  • isaac_ros_nvblox as the costmap source
  • Nav2 as the navigation stack
  • RViz for visualization and interaction

This example is intended to help users understand how the key components of Nvblox integrated with Nav2 work together in a navigation pipeline, rather than to provide a configuration that can be directly deployed on any AMR or environment.

How to use​

This example is meant as a conceptual and configuration reference. It uses a predefined robot setup that match the internal example configuration. Because most users will have different AMR hardware and will operate in a different physical environment, you should not expect to:

  • Directly run this exact example on your own AMR without modifications, or
  • See your real robot moving in your own environment just by launching this demo

Instead, you can use this example to:

  • Observe the visualized workflow of Nvblox integrated with Nav2 for navigation and obstacle avoidance

When the example is executed:

  1. RViz will launch with the predefined configuration and display the results
  2. Nav2 will generate paths based on the costmap provided by ISAAC Nvblox

Although this example provides a ROS bag, it only contains the essential topics required for visualization:

  • /camera_0/color/image : Color image stream from the 3D camera
  • /nvblox_node/color_layer : Visualization of the color layer in Nvblox
  • /nvblox_node/combined_occupancy_grid : Combined occupancy grid used by Nvblox for mapping and costmaps
  • /visual_slam/tracking/vo_path : Estimated robot trajectory from visual odometry

Reference Configuration​

When working with this example, it is recommended that users have a basic understanding of ISAAC Nvblox and Nav2. Ideally, users should be able to run isaac_ros_nvblox independently and use Nav2 for basic path planning.

This example includes the following key modifications:

  1. isaac_ros_nvblox
    • Set mapping_type to dynamic
  2. Nav2
  • Updated the YAML configuration to include Nvblox plugins for:
    • local_costmap
    • global_costmap
  • Removed AMCL-related components

This configuration represents only one possible approach provided in this example.It does not imply that ISAAC Nvblox can only be integrated with Nav2 in this way.

GitHub​

For detailed configuration, please refer to Robotic suite GitHub