lci_rmf_adapter (RMF Lift and Door Adapter for LCI)

This package is an implementation of RMF Lift Adapter¹ and Door Adapter² for LCI.

LCI is the cloud-based service provided by Octa Robotics, Inc³ .

It supports,

• Multiple vendors of elevators (lifts) including Mitsubishi, Hitachi, Toshiba, Fujitec, OTIS and more
• Multiple vendors of doors and turnstiles including Nabco, Teraoka, Kumahira and more

The base protocol of LCI is RFA⁴ on MQTT.

This package bridges ROS2 (RMF Lift and Door Adapter) to LCI.

System requirements

• ROS2 Humble
• Python packages
  • paho-mqtt < 2.0.0
  • ruamel.yaml

The more detail is exemplified in Dockerfile.

Topics

Message Types	ROS2 Topic	Description
rmf_lift_msgs/LiftState	/lift_states	State of the lift published by the lift node
rmf_lift_msgs/LiftRequest	/adapter_lift_requests	Requests to be sent to the lift supervisor to request operation of lifts
rmf_door_msgs/DoorState	/door_states	State of the door published by the door node
rmf_door_msgs/DoorRequest	/adapter_door_requests	Requests to be sent to the door supervisor to request operation of doors

Limitation

• LiftRequest shall be published when starting to use the lift at the origination floor and after the robot entered the car of the lift (twice in total).
• When the robot is at the origination floor, LiftRequest.destination_floor shall be "<origination>".
• After the robot entered the car, LiftRequest.destination_floor shall be "<destination>".
• For both of LiftRequest, LiftRequest.destination_floor can be set with the format of "<origination>:<destination>". This format is required especially when the backend lift API of LCI requires both "<origination>" and "<destination>" at the first request.
• The suffix _r is used for the floor name to specify the rear door. This rule applies <origination>, <destination>, LiftRequest.destination_floor and LiftRequest.current_floor.

For example, if the robot wants to use the lift from B1 of the front door to 8F of the rear door,

• LiftRequest.destination_floor shall be B1:8F_r.
• The arrival at the final destination can be detected by checking if LiftRequest.current_floor and LiftRequest.door_state are 8F_r and LiftState.DOOR_OPEN respectively.

LCI files

To configure lci_rmf_adapter, the following files are needed.

• server_config.yaml : Config file to specify what elevators and doors are robot-ready.
• Cert files: ClientID, client certificate and private key of an LCI Robot Account.

All of them will be provided by Octa Robotics.

server_config_simulator.yaml is the config file for the simulator provided by Octa Robotics.

Please contact [email protected] to obtain the LCI Robot Account for development, which is only allowed to access the simulator.

Docker

To use lci_rmf_adapter quickly, it is recommended to use Docker.

container_manager.sh provides an utility for Docker.

• Edit LCI_SERVER_CONFIG_YAML and LCI_CERT_DIR in start.sh to fit your environment.
• sudo ./container_manager.sh start
  • It will build and start the container.
• sudo ./container_manager.sh login
  • It will login you in the container environment.
• ./start.sh
  • It will start the Node of lci_rmf_adapter.

Client examples

For Lift

ROS2 Node example is found in the test code for lift.

Its entry point is test_client_lift.sh

Please edit LIFT_NAME, ORIGINATION and DESTINATION in test_client_lift.sh for trial.

LIFT_NAME is of the format /lci/<bldg_id>/<bank_id>/<elevator_id>.

For Door

ROS2 Node example is found in the test code for door.

Its entry point is test_client_door.sh

Please edit DOOR_NAME in test_client_door.sh for trial

DOOR_NAME is of the format /lci/<bldg_id>/<floor_id>/<door_id>.

Use LCI directly

LCI does not only support the elevators (lifts) and the doors but also,

• signals from alarm systems
• automatic setting and releasing of security systems
• the exclusive control of resoruces among multiple robot systems (LCI Sem)
• the messaging service between robots and humans (LCI Bell)

To use full functionaly of LCI, please use MQTT.

lci_client.py is an implementation of LCI client without ROS2.

Footnotes

1. https://osrf.github.io/ros2multirobotbook/integration_lifts.html ↩

2. https://osrf.github.io/ros2multirobotbook/integration_doors.html ↩

3. https://www.octa8.jp/service/ ↩

4. RFA is the acronym of the Robot Friendly Asset Promotion Association of Japan. RFA publishes the standards for the interfaces between robots and elevators/doors. RFA standards are available for purchase from their homepage. English version is also available. ↩