Thesis proposal – Distributed map creation and planning in and outside Carla environment

Titel

Distributed map creation and planning in and outside Carla environment

Background

We already know of the possibility to create a map using camera and Lidar data in a simulated Carla environment. Adding multiple agents to the already existing setup could increase the speed of the map generation and accuracy of the generated map. For this to work properly we will require a working communication protocol between the different agents. A good starting point for investigating previous work in this area could be the following paper: Distributed Decentralised Visual SLAM for Multi-Agent Systems

An interesting question would be if such a solution handles the case of malicious or faulty agents, and if not whether an extension could be designed that would estimate how much trust can be put into the map information that is shared.

A specific use case would be a warehouse automation system where each agent communicates changes in the local environment and plans tasks accordingly. The planning could either be done centrally or negotiated through a distributed protocol which would have the advantage of being able to handle tasks discovered in the environment without having to saturate the network further.

Some of the research questions that could be addressed by this thesis work are:

• After how many agents is it no longer beneficial to add more agents for the map generation?
• How does the optimal route change when adding more agents?

Work description

This thesis work aims to investigate the possibility to add multiple agents used for map creation in Carla environment using camera and/or Lidar. Different communication protocols for both a distributed system as well as a centralised system needs to be investigated. A comparison between the two approaches regarding network saturation, efficiency and quality of planning would be interesting.

We think the thesis will contain the following parts:

• Investigate different communication protocols between multiple Carla agents used for map generation as well as implementing and evaluating one of these protocols.
• Implement a distributed and a centralised protocol for task delegation and planning.
• Compare the distributed and centralised protocols against each other.

Qualifications

• A background in computer science or electrical engineering.
• Interest in working with simulation environments.
• It would be meritorious to have knowledge of ROS and embedded programming.

Application:

We look forward to receiving your resume, and preferably, a personal letter in which you explain why you want to write your thesis with Syntronic.

We screen and evaluate applications on an ongoing basis.