autoware_ground_segmentation_cuda

Purpose

The autoware_ground_segmentation algorithms have been thoroughly tested with Autoware. However, due to latency and high computational cost when processing large pointcloud, the input pointcloud range has been limited by the crop_box_filter based on the ego-vehicle's base_link. This can cause unwanted object loss, especially before a sloped road.

Recently, GPU and CUDA-supported libraries such as cuda_blackboard and accelerated versions of autoware_pointcloud_preprocessor have been implemented. These can be leveraged to improve the performance of ground segmentation filter algorithms using CUDA/GPU.

This package reimplements the current scan_ground_filter of the ground_segmentation package to reduce latency and avoid the bottleneck caused by processing a large number of point clouds.

Inner-workings / Algorithm

The detailed algorithm is available in scan-ground-filter.md.

Parameters

Name	Type	Description	Default	Range
global_slope_max_angle_deg	float	Maximum global ground slope angle [deg]. Larger values reduce false negatives on steep roads but can increase false positives (classifying objects as ground).	10	N/A
local_slope_max_angle_deg	float	Maximum local slope angle [deg] between adjacent points (used for fine discrimination of small objects or ramps).	13	N/A
non_ground_height_threshold	float	Absolute vertical distance threshold [m] above estimated ground line to classify a point as non-ground.	0.2	N/A
grid_size_m	float	Radial cell size in polar grid [m]; larger values smooth ground estimation but may miss small objects.	0.1	N/A
gnd_cell_buffer_size	integer	Number of previous ground cells used to estimate local ground slope.	4	N/A
detection_range_z_max	float	Maximum Z height (above base_link) considered in classification [m].	2.5	N/A
center_pcl_shift	float	X-axis offset [m] applied to additional LiDAR point clouds relative to vehicle reference (positive forward).	0	N/A
sector_angle_deg	float	Angular width of each polar sector [deg].	1	N/A
use_recheck_ground_cluster	boolean	Enable secondary pass to re-evaluate ground clusters (may reduce false ground on elevated points).	1	N/A
recheck_start_distance	float	Minimum radial distance [m] at which ground cluster recheck logic begins.	20	≥0.0
use_lowest_point	boolean	Use lowest point in cell as reference during ground recheck (otherwise median-like selection).	1	N/A
min_x	float	Minimum X range relative to base_link [m] included in processing.	-100	N/A
max_x	float	Maximum X (forward) range relative to base_link [m] included in processing.	150	N/A
min_y	float	Minimum Y range relative to base_link [m] included in processing.	-70	N/A
max_y	float	Maximum Y range relative to base_link [m] included in processing.	70	N/A
min_z	float	Minimum Z range relative to base_link [m] included in processing.	-2.5	N/A
max_z	float	Maximum Z range relative to base_link [m] included in processing.	2.5	N/A