Global planner waypoint provision

[sbadamikar-research]

I've worked with global planners that would take intermediate waypoints as an input to generate a more granular plans.
This allows the path planning to be informed beyond shortest path algorithms and improved integration of centralized route planners or fleet managers.

To that end, I had expanded the PlannerServer API to include a vector of poses that allows for providing waypoints.
This also removes the overhead for executing the Action multiple times and stitching outputs in such a scenario.

I would like to contribute the same to the source MBF repo.
Can I get some guidance on how to get to the PR stage if it sounds reasonable?

[amock]

Hi @sbadamikar-research,

In general, planning through predefined waypoints and obtaining a connected path would be a great addition. It is also map and robot independent, so it would indeed belong to the MBF interfaces.

This can already be done by calling the planner actions to generate intermediate paths and stitching them together before handing the result to a controller. Therefore, we should clearly define what benefits the new interface would provide compared to the existing one. You also mentioned that you have already implemented some parts. Is there anything publicly available for testing?

Regarding how to contribute this, I think it would introduce an interface extension. We should therefore discuss a few points and do some brainstorming first. Please contact me via E-Mail at alexander.mock@naturerobots.com so we can discuss the details. Once we have reached an agreement, we can return to this GitHub issue and define the actual implementation plan here. Does that work for you?

If anyone else is interested in contributing to this topic, please leave a comment here or write me an e-mail so we can include you in the development process.