Getting Help and FAQ

Where to Ask

A good question contains:

  • your setup (Debian packages, Docker image or source build; Ubuntu and ROS2 version; apt policy ros-jazzy-cpm-lab),

  • the middleware (echo $RMW_IMPLEMENTATION) and the domain (echo $ROS_DOMAIN_ID) of every terminal,

  • what you did, what you expected and what happened, with the complete error message or log as text,

  • what you already tried from the Troubleshooting Guide.

Frequently Asked Questions

Start never becomes available after Deploy.

The bridge waits until the planner reported ready for every vehicle and every vehicle sent a state. Follow the Deploy Checks. Most often, an external planner runs in the wrong domain (it must be ROS_DOMAIN_ID=1), with other vehicle IDs or with another middleware than the lab.

The vehicles do not move after Start.

Check that your planner publishes commands on /planner/command in domain 1 (ros2 topic echo /planner/command), that the commands have the vehicle_id of deployed vehicles and that valid_after_stamp is not in the far future. See Interface Reference.

The map is missing in RViz.

Start the map server in the Control Center. With FastDDS, the map may not be displayed; use Zenoh or CycloneDDS, see Middleware.

My planner is not listed in the Control Center.

Source your workspace before you start the lab, in the same terminal. The launch file must declare the argument vehicle_ids, see Understanding the Motion Planner. Or start it as external planner (External Motion Planner).

My planner does not see the lab, but works in simulation.

The lab uses Zenoh. Set RMW_IMPLEMENTATION=rmw_zenoh_cpp and connect to the router of the central workstation, see Running Your Planner in the Lab.

My recordings are gone after leaving the Docker container.

Recordings go to ~/cpm_lab/experiments, which the helper scripts mount from the host. If you start the container with docker run yourself, mount it as shown in Student Setup.

How do I use my own map or IPS configuration?

Put it into ~/cpm_lab/maps/ or ~/cpm_lab/ips/, see Your Own Maps and IPS Configurations.

git clone fails with “Permission denied (publickey)”.

The repositories are only available via SSH. Add an SSH key to your GitLab account; HTTP(S) is not supported.