ros_openvino

A ROS package to wrap openvino inference engine and get it working with Myriad and Intel CPU/GPUs
The main topic is to accelerate robotics developing using ROS with OpenVINO.
This package is designed on async api of Intel OpenVINO and allows an easy setup for object detection.

Entire package is born to support Myriad X, so it works perfectly with:

• Movidius Neural Compute Stick 2
• Ai Core X
• Movidius Neural Compute Stick
• Ai Core

object detection node allows you to use a standard image topic and obtain a new topic with live result image. If you enable depth analysis you can add depth image topic to obtain 3d boxes, visible as markers in rviz.

Wiki

Wiki home

Setup

You need some steps to get ros_openvino working.
If you are working on a Myriad based device (NCS, NCS2, AI Core, AI Core X) follow this guide because is faster.

If you have already this kind of stuffs, please take care to modify steps for your case.

- Prerequisites

1. Ubuntu 16.04/18.04
2. OpenVINO 2018 R5 or newer (latest officially tested is 2019 R3)
3. ROS Kinetic Kame/Melodic Morenia

- Setup ros_openvino

1. Clone repo in your source folder, assuming catkin_ws as your ROS workspace:
   cd ~/catkin_ws/src
git clone http://github.com/gbr1/ros_openvino.git
   
2. Compile!
   cd ~/catkin_ws
catkin_make
catkin_make install

all installation steps and a case of study configuration are described in Setup environment wiki page.

Remember that OpenVINO enviroment variables, ROS enviroment variables and ROS workspace need to be sourced in bashrc.

- Tests

There are some demo launch files.

1. Webcam and GPU
   you need to install usb_cam node:
   sudo apt-get install ros-kinetic-usb-cam
   then type:
   roslaunch ros_openvino gpu_demo_webcam.launch
   

2. Webcam and Myriad
   you need to install usb_cam node:
   sudo apt-get install ros-kinetic-usb-cam
   then type:
   roslaunch ros_openvino myriad_demo_webcam.launch
   

3. Realsense D435/D435i/D415 and Myriad
   you need to install realsense package, follow here step-by-step according your environment setup.
   After that, just type:
   roslaunch ros_openvino myriad_demo_realsense.launch
   

Nodes

• object_detection, a node to detect objects in enviroment using a RGB or RGBD camera using MobileNet-SSD

Note

Tests are done on UP2 with Intel Atom, 4GB of RAM and 64GB eMMC and AI Core X. Results with a complete analysis with 4-5 object detected is about 30fps for rgb output and 16-18Hz for spatial calculation.
On GPU analysis drop down the frame rate.

If OpenVINO works on Ubuntu 18.04 this package should be compatible with ROS Melodic Morenia.

Known issues

• CPU device doesn't work. In the future yes, it is in "todo" list;
• GPU is worst than Myriad;
• resize of input image is not availble at the moment. It is in "todo" list.

Future steps

• add face and body tracking
• improve depth analysis

This package is distribuited under Affero GPLv3.
Copyright (c) 2019 Giovanni di Dio Bruno

Models:

• mobilenet-ssd.bin
• mobilenet-ssd.xml

are created using OpenVINO model downloader and converter.
Original mobilenet-ssd model are under Intel OpenVINO licenses.