2023 minimum working example

[j-herman]

Providing files that match/ support the new competitor example image. This could be ready for review as-is, but I'm marking it draft since I'm not sure we want to merge it before the rest of the docker work is complete and testable, or whether we want to move the image elsewhere.
I ran vrx from my system directly as I can't get dockwater working at the moment. I also did not test with vrx-server as I'm not sure what its status is.

To test;

• grab the image
• docker run -it jessicaherman/vrx-competitor-example:2023.v2 - you should see a note that says the node is starting
• In another terminal, run ros2 launch vrx_gz competition.launch.py world:=stationkeeping_task
• Once the task message starts to publish you should see information in the competitor window. When the status changes to "running", you should see that the vrx terminal reports the bridge having translated a message. The wamv will move forward slightly, then the thrusters will stop.
• Ctrl-C out of the vrx window before the task terminates.
• Run ros2 launch vrx_gz competition.launch.py world:=perception_task
• Let the task run to completion and note that the score is no longer at 10.

[M1chaelM]

I think it's fine to keep the image in its current location. This is working for me with the testing tutorial using branch M1chaelM/fix_trial_run, which will be merged into this branch once PR #62 is approved. When that happens we can mark this PR ready for review and test it on the various tasks.

[M1chaelM]

PR #62 is now merged, so this is ready for review.

[M1chaelM]

Now testing using this image and the VRX 2023 testing tutorial:

• Stationkeeping. Moves a few feet and stops.
• Wayfinding. Drives straight ahead.
• Perception. Not currently scoring any points, and I'm not sure why. Edit: fixed with enable competition bridges when world uses absolute paths vrx#688
• Acoustic Perception. Drives straight ahead.
• Wildlife. Drives straight ahead.
• Follow-the-path. Drives straight ahead.
• Acoustic Tracking. Drives straight ahead.
• Scan, Dock, Deliver. Drives straight ahead.

[M1chaelM]

Verified that the ghost ship is successfully publishing to /vrx/perception/landmark by echoing this topic from the vrx server:

developer@0117a89a55d0:~$ ros2 topic echo /vrx/perception/landmark
header:
  stamp:
    sec: 1687821781
    nanosec: 304757932
  frame_id: mb_marker_buoy_red
pose:
  position:
    x: -33.7227024
    y: 150.67402097
    z: 0.0
  orientation:
    x: 0.0
    y: 0.0
    z: 0.0
    w: 1.0
---
header:
  stamp:
    sec: 1687821781
    nanosec: 304757932
  frame_id: mb_marker_buoy_red
pose:
  position:
    x: -33.7227024
    y: 150.67402097
    z: 0.0
  orientation:
    x: 0.0
    y: 0.0
    z: 0.0
    w: 1.0
---
header:
  stamp:
    sec: 1687821781
    nanosec: 304757932
  frame_id: mb_marker_buoy_red
pose:
  position:
    x: -33.7227024
    y: 150.67402097
    z: 0.0
  orientation:
    x: 0.0
    y: 0.0
    z: 0.0
    w: 1.0
---

So it seems like the image is fine but for some reason these messages are not being registered as attempts. This problem goes away if I alter the run_trial.bash script to call the installed practice_2023_perception0_task instead of the copy of the same file that the tutorial uses, titled perception0, so I think it's very likely that this is another bug related to using absolute paths. Ideally we should fix this before merging.

[M1chaelM]

Update: Confirmed that although the ROS 2 topic /vrx/perception/landmark looks and works fine, there is no corresponding topic created on the gz side. This topic is different from all the other topics created by vrx task plugins in that it uses a ROS_TO_GZ bridge instead of a GZ_TO_ROS bridge, so it looks like the problem is just that the bridge isn't being created. Luckily, this can be reproduced without using any docker images so I will create an issue for it in vrx.

[M1chaelM]

Working as expected for all tasks. This was very useful for detecting bugs in VRX!