[Survey] Proposal to change the namespace of the ndt_scan_matcher's output topic & localization/util/*filter

[KYabuuchi]

Background:

Currently, Autoware supports some pose_estimators, including NDT, YabLoc, Eagleye, and AR-tag based methods.
Topic to be published by pose_estimator other than NDT is /localization/pose_estimator/<method name>/*, while for NDT it is /localization/pose_estimator/*.

There is no consistency in the hierarchy of these namespaces.

Proposal:

To align those namespaces, I would like to change the output topic of NDT to /localization/pose_estimator/ndt_scan_matcher/*.

Only /localization/pose_estimator/pose_with_covariance is not changed. This topic is the interface between pose_estimator and ekf_localizer, and any pose_estimator method will output this topic.

For example, the change is as follows:

before	after
/localization/pose_estimator/nearest_voxel_transformation_likelihood	/localization/pose_estimator/ndt_scan_matcher/nearest_voxel_transformation_likelihood
/localization/pose_estimator/points_aligned	/localization/pose_estimator/ndt_scan_matcher/points_aligned
/localization/pose_estimator/trigger_node	/localization/pose_estimator/ndt_scan_matcher/trigger_node
/localization/pose_estimator/pose_with_covariance	WILL NOT CHANGE

Investigation:

To implement the proposed change, modifications are required in the following packages:

• autowarefoundation/autoware.universe/localization localization packages

• autowarefoundation/autoware_launch/rviz/autoware.rviz visualizaiton in RViz

• tier4/tier4_ad_api_adaptor/autoware_iv_external_api_adaptor/ API

• tier4/driving_log_replayer/localization_evaluator_node.py evaluation scenario in DrivingLogReplayer

If there are any other packages that would be affected by this change, please let me know.
Also, alternative suggestions would be welcome.

Thank you.

[KYabuuchi]

In addition to the changes descried above, I also propose renaming /localization/util/*filter* .

Currently, all nodes launched by tier4_localization_launch/launch/util/util.launch.xml are pre-processing for ndt_scan_matcher.
For example, the following node is launched and topics are published:

node	publishing topic
/localization/util/crop_box_filter_measurement_range	/localization/util/measurement_range/pointcloud
/localization/util/voxel_grid_downsample_filter	/localization/util/voxel_grid_downsample/pointcloud
/localization/util/random_downsample_filter	/localization/util/downsample/pointcloud

These are not needed by other pose_estimators, and the namespace util is not intuitive. So I think the namespace should be changed.

I have not yet decided on the new namespace to change to. If you have any ideas, please share with me. 👍

Thank you.