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Pull Request for Exploration Planner

What does this pull request do?

Adds an exploration as an alternative of random walk planner

Two images added for visualization.

How did you implement it?

Migrated from subt with modification, integrated map processor (for voxel grid maintain and frontier extract) and path planner (for RRT) so that they now use a shared voxel grid for collision check. Implemented a RRT path shortening method (check image).

Testing

How do you run the tests?
In global.launch.xml, comment out the random walk planning section, and add the following line:

<include file="$(find-pkg-share exploration_planner)/launch/exploration_launch.xml" />

Then click the Global Plan button after takeoff just like using the random walk planner.

The voxels from vdb_mapping doesn't differenciate free and unknown, so in order to extract frontier that requires such difference, the exploration planner maintains its own collision map. Therefore, you can also comment out the vdb_mapping module to save some computation.

In rviz, the path is visualized the same as global plan, while the maintained vdb (without vdb mapping) can be visualized in <namespace>/vdb_viz topic.

I didn't push such launch xml and rviz changes for not affecting other's usage.

What do the tests do?

What are the expected results of the tests?

Did you update the docs (and where)?

Added a line in mkdocs.yml, pointing to the modified readme file in exploration folder.

@jfkeller jfkeller merged commit 4566239 into main Oct 8, 2025
@andrewjong andrewjong deleted the junbin/planning_dev branch November 17, 2025 22:37
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4 participants