Vehicle Gets Stuck on Uphill Road by Mistaking It for an Obstacle (Autoware.Universe + CARLA Co-Simulation)

[sgNicola]

Checklist

• I've read the contribution guidelines.
• I've searched other issues and no duplicate issues were found.
• I'm convinced that this is not my fault but a bug.

Description

Treat the uphill road as an obstacle and get stuck on the road when using autoware.universe + Carla co-simulation.

Expected behavior

The vehicle should navigate uphill roads smoothly without interruptions, recognizing the road as drivable and not as an obstacle.

Actual behavior

When approaching an uphill road, the vehicle stops and does not proceed further, behaving as if there is an obstacle blocking its path.

Steps to reproduce

1. Launch Autoware.Universe.
2. Drive the vehicle around areas with uphill roads.
3. Observe the vehicle behavior as it approaches the uphill sections.

Versions

-OS: Ubuntu20.04
-ROS2: galactic
-Autoware: autoware.universe galactic

Possible causes

The issue appears to stem from the Surround Obstacle Checker, which subscribes to the /perception/obstacle_segmentation/pointcloud topic. It incorrectly interprets the uphill road geometry as an obstacle. Additionally, it's worth noting that the output of the perception module on the /perception/object_recognition/objects topic is empty.

Additional context

No response

[sgNicola]

I have attempted to replace the topic from /perception/obstacle_segmentation/pointcloud to /pointcloud_map_filtered/pointcloud for both the Surround Obstacle Checker and the Obstacle Stop Planner. This modification may resolve issues by filtering out uphill pointcloud data, thereby enabling smoother vehicle operation.
However, I am concerned that this adjustment may introduce potential safety risks, as the original system design relies on subscribing to the unfiltered pointcloud topic as part of safety redundancy measures.