CarND-Controls-MPC

Self-Driving Car Engineer Nanodegree Program

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This README can also be found in this repo as a PDF (in case the equations don't show properly).

Dependencies

• cmake >= 3.5
• All OSes: click here for installation instructions
• make >= 4.1
  • Linux: make is installed by default on most Linux distros
  • Mac: install Xcode command line tools to get make
  • Windows: Click here for installation instructions
• gcc/g++ >= 5.4
  • Linux: gcc / g++ is installed by default on most Linux distros
  • Mac: same deal as make - [install Xcode command line tools]((https://developer.apple.com/xcode/features/)
  • Windows: recommend using MinGW
• uWebSockets == 0.14, but the master branch will probably work just fine
  • Follow the instructions in the uWebSockets README to get setup for your platform. You can download the zip of the appropriate version from the releases page. Here's a link to the v0.14 zip.
  • If you have MacOS and have Homebrew installed you can just run the ./install-mac.sh script to install this.
• Ipopt
  • Mac: brew install ipopt --with-openblas
  • Linux
    • You will need a version of Ipopt 3.12.1 or higher. The version available through apt-get is 3.11.x. If you can get that version to work great but if not there's a script install_ipopt.sh that will install Ipopt. You just need to download the source from here.
    • Then call install_ipopt.sh with the source directory as the first argument, ex: bash install_ipopt.sh Ipopt-3.12.1.
  • Windows: TODO. If you can use the Linux subsystem and follow the Linux instructions.
• CppAD
  • Mac: brew install cppad
  • Linux sudo apt-get install cppad or equivalent.
  • Windows: TODO. If you can use the Linux subsystem and follow the Linux instructions.
• Eigen. This is already part of the repo so you shouldn't have to worry about it.
• Simulator. You can download these from the releases tab.

Basic Build Instructions

1. Clone this repo.
2. Make a build directory: mkdir build && cd build
3. Compile: cmake .. && make
4. Run it: ./mpc.

Building using Docker

1. docker build -t mpcp .
2. docker run -p 127.0.0.1:4567:4567 mpcp ./mpc

Discussion

Pre-processing of Waypoints

All the waypoints are transformed from the global reference frame to the vehicle reference frame. The following transform is used for each of the waypoints:

$$ x_{trans} = [x_{waypoint} - x_p] * cos(\psi) + [y_{waypoint} - y_p] * sin(\psi)\\ y_{trans} = - [x_{waypoint} - x_p] * sin(\psi) + [y_{waypoint} - y_p] * cos(\psi) $$

Where $\psi$ is the angle of the vehicle with respect to the x-axis and $x_p$ and $y_p$ are the location of the vehicle in the global reference frame. $x_{waypoint}$ and $y_{waypoint}$ are the x, y coordinates of a given waypoint in the global reference frame.

Polynomial Fitting

The transformed waypoints are fit to a 3rd order polynomial $f(x_t)$.

$$ f(x_t) = c_0 + c_1x_t + c_2x_t^2 + c_3x_t^3 $$ With $c_i$ $ i\in {0,1,2,3}$ being the coefficients.

Given that the waypoints are now in the reference frame of the vehicle, the current cross track error $cte_0$ is simply the value of the polynomial at point $x_0= 0.0$, so we have $cte_0 = f(x_0)=f(0.0)=c_0$ .

The current orientation error $e \psi$ is determined by the arc-tangent of the derivative of the polynomial. $$ e \psi = arctan(f'(x_t)) = arctan(c_1 + 2c_2x_t + 3c_3x_t^2) $$ The result $e \psi_0$ is also at point $x_0=0.0$ and hence $e \psi_0 = arctan f'(x_0)= arctan f'(0.0) = arctan (c_1)$.

The Model

The state is a 6 element vector with the following elements:

• $x$ position of vehicle
• $y$ position of vehicle
• $\psi$ - the orientation of the vehicle
• $v$ - speed of the vehicle
• $cte$ - cross track error
• $e \psi$ - orientation error

The actuators are contained in a 2 element vector:

• $\delta$ - steering angle
• $a$ - acceleration

The following update equations were used:

$$ x_{t+1} = x_t + v_t * cos(\psi_t) * dt\ y_{t+1}= y_t + v_t *sin(\psi_t)*dt\ \psi_{t+1} = \psi_t + \frac{v_t}{L_f} * \delta * dt\ v_{t+1} = v_t + a_t dt\ cte_{t+1} = f(x_t) - y_t + v_t * sin(e\psi_t)dt\ e\psi_{t+1} = \psi_t - \psi des_t + \frac{v_t}{L_f}\delta_tdt\ $$

With the current state being $[x_0,y_0,\psi_0,v_0,cte_0,e \psi_0] = [0.0,0.0,0.0,v, f(0.0),arctan(f'(0.0))]$.

Timestep Length, Frequency and MPC Latency

Given that MPC has a latency of 100ms, I decided to choose a $dt$ slightly higher than that, namely $dt=0.15$. I then experimented with different values for $N$. Here the best suited value turned out to be $N=11$. The prediction horizon $T$ then becomes $T=(N-1) * dt=10*0.15=1.5$. With higher values of $N$, the vehicle would drive erratically and quickly drive off the track. Lower values, would make the prediction very limited.

Demo Video

A demo video of this project can be found on Youtube here.