gasur

This package has been renamed to CASER and development has migrated to the caser repository.

A python package for Guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) of Autonomous Swarms Using Random finite sets (RFS) developed by the Laboratory for Autonomy GNC and Estimation Research (LAGER) at the University of Alabama (UA).

Setup

Currently this package is not available via pip, this provides a guide on installation from the git repository. Note that Python 3 is required, pytest is used for managing the built-in tests, and tox is used for automating the testing and documentation generation. It is recommended to use Anaconda and the Spyder IDE, but this is not necessary. The general process follows the following order with more details in the corresponding subsections.

1. Install Anaconda and Spyder and update to the latest version [Optional]. See Installing and Updating Spyder.

2. Decide if gncpy is needed as a seperate repository outside of gasur. This makes it easier to develop for gncpy in addition to gasur.

   • If gncpy is installed outside, tox will still use the version within gasur for running automated tests.

3. Setup git for submodules if tox will be used to automate running all test cases or gncpy is not being installed outside gasur [Optional]. See Using git with Submodules.
4. Clone gasur.
5. Clone gncpy outside gasur [Optional].

6. Install gasur and gncpy to the base conda environment. See Installing gasur and gncpy.

   • Other virtual environments can be used for development/projects but it seems gasur/gncpy are needed in the base to get Spyder's variable explorer to work with their custom types.

If using Anaconda and Spyder and all optional steps where followed you should be able to run tests with tox, generate documentation with tox, and run tests as standalone scripts from within Spyder (See Testing and Building Documentation). Also the Spyder IDE variable explorer should recognize gasur and gncpy data types for debugging. It is also possible to create conda environments and tell Spyder to use that as the interpreter for running code. Note that the proper version of spyder-kernels must be installed in the environment but Spyder will tell you the command to run when it fails to start the interpreter. This can be useful if you need additional libraries for certain projects. Information on conda environments can be found here and setting up Spyder with a custom interpreter can be done through Spyder's settings.

Installing and Updating Spyder

1. Download and install Anaconda. This should also install Spyder, numpy, matplotlib, and some other common libraries to a base conda (virtual) environment.

2. Open Spyder and check the version by going to about spyder from the help menu.

   • If it is not version >= 5.1.5 and you want to update to the version 5.1.5 (recommended), close Spyder and run the following commands from a terminal (Anaconda prompt on windows) the second and third commands may give errors but they can be ignored. See here on stackoverflow.

     conda remove spyder
     conda remove python-language-server
     conda update anaconda
     conda install spyder=5.1.5

Installing gasur and gncpy

1. Download/clone the gncpy repository and save it somewhere on your system (remember the location) [Optional].

   • Only do this if you need/want gncpy outside of gasur.

2. Download/clone the gasur repository somewhere on your system (remember the location).
3. Open the terminal that has the base Anaconda environment activated (normal terminal for linux, Anaconda prompt on windows).

4. Navigate to the directory where you saved the repositories.

   • The directory structure should look like the following. Where you only have two gncpy folders if you are installing gncpy outside, and cloned both repositories to the same top level directory.

     . (YOU ARE HERE)
     ├── gasur/
     │   ├── setup.py
     │   ├── gncpy/
     │   │   └── setup.py
     │   └── src
     └── gncpy/
         └── setup.py

5. Install gncpy.

   • If using anaconda then install without dependencies to allow conda to manage dependencies. Note, PATH_TO_GNCPY is either ./gncpy/ if installing gncpy outside gasur, or ./gasur/gncpy/ otherwise.

     conda install numpy scipy matplotlib
     pip install --no-dependencies -e PATH_TO_GNCPY

   • If not using anaconda then gncpy can be installed with the dependencies. Note, PATH_TO_GNCPY follows the format in the above bullet.

     pip install -e PATH_TO_GNCPY

6. Install gasur.

   • If using anaconda then install without dependencies to allow conda to manage dependencies.

     pip install --no-dependencies -e ./gasur

   • If not using anaconda then gasur can be installed with the dependencies.

     pip install -e ./gasur

7. If using Anaconda, then to run the built-in tests as standalone scripts, install the test dependencies [Optional].

   conda install pytest

8. Install tox for automated testing and building the documentation [Optional]

   • For Anaconda run

   conda install -c conda-forge tox

   • If not using Anaconda then run

   pip install tox

Using git with Submodules

It is recommended to setup git to handle some submodule commands automatically by running the following commands once.

git config --global diff.submodule log
git config --global status.submodulesummary 1
git config --global submodule.recurse true

Otherwise, some helpful commands are outlined below and see git's submodule page for more information.

To clone a repo with submodules use

git clone --recursive [URL to Git repo]

To pull new changes for all submodules and new changes in the base repo use

git pull --recurse-submodules

To just pull changes from all submodules use

git submodule update --remote

You can also cd into individual submodules and use git commands as if you were inside that repo.

Testing

Unit and validation tests make use of pytest for the test runner, and tox for automation. The test scripts are located within the test/ sub-directory. The tests can be run through a command line with python 3 and tox installed. If the Spyder setup instructions were followed then the tests can also be run as standalone scripts from within Spyder by uncommenting the appropriate line under the __main__ section.

There are 3 different environments for running tests. One for unit tests, another for validation tests, and a general purpose one that accepts any arguments to pytest. The general purpose environment is executed by running

tox -e test -- PY_TEST_ARGS

where PY_TEST_ARGS are any arguments to be passed directly to the pytest command (Note: if none are passed the -- is not needed). For example to run any test cases containing a keyword, run the following,

tox -e test -- -k guidance

To run tests marked as slow, pass the --runslow option.

The unit test environment runs all tests within the test/unit/ sub-directory. These tests are designed to confirm basic functionality. Many of them do not ensure algorithm performance but may do some basic checking of a few key parameters. This environment is run by

tox -e unit_test -- PY_TEST_ARGS

The validation test environment runs all tests within the test/validation/ sub-directory. These are designed to verify algorithm performance and include more extensive checking of the output arguments against known values. They often run slower than unit tests. These can be run with

tox -e validation_test -- PY_TEST_ARGS

Building Documentation

The documentation uses sphinx and autodoc to pull docstrings from the code. This process is run through a command line that has python 3 and tox installed. The built documentation is in the docs/build/ sub-directory. The HTML version of the docs can be built using the following command

tox -e docs -- html

Then they can be viewed by opening docs/build/html/index.html with a web browser.

Notes about tox

If tox is failing to install the dependencies due to an error in distutils, then it may be required to instal distutils seperately by

sudo apt install python3.7-distutils

for a debian based system.

Cite

Please cite the framework as follows

@Misc{gasur,
author       = {Jordan D. Larson and Ryan W. Thomas and Vaughn Weirens and Vincent W. Hill},
howpublished = {Web page},
title        = {{GASUR}: A {P}ython library for {G}uidance, navigation, and control of {A}utonomous {S}warms {U}sing {R}andom finite sets},
year         = {2019},
url          = {https://github.com/drjdlarson/gasur},
}