Add a Custom Planner

The following steps are necessary to add a new planner to Bench-MR.

Inherit from AbstractPlanner

Your planner needs to be implemented in C++ and provide an interface that inherits from AbstractPlanner. The corresponding abstract functions need to implemented:

std::string name() const {}
ompl::base::PlannerStatus run()
ompl::geometric::PathGeometric solution() const
bool hasReachedGoalExactly() const
double planningTime() const

As shown, the path solution needs to be returned as a ompl::geometric::PathGeometric from OMPL.

Register Planner in PlanningSettings

Register your planner as a new entry in the PlanningSettings in base/PlannerSettings.h to allow the benchmark configuration to enable the use of this planner. Each entry follows the same format:

Property<bool> planner{true, "planner", this};

where planner is the name of your planner.

Add Planner to Benchmark Function

To execute the planner when its corresponding flag in PlanningSettings is active, we need to add the following term to the evaluatePlanners function in experiments/benchmark.cpp:

if (global::settings.benchmark.planning.planner)
  PathEvaluation::evaluateSmoothers<Planner>(info);

where Planner is the type of your planner (the one inherited from AbstractPlanner).

Update Front-end Definitions

Go to python/definitions.py to optionally register a user-friendly title in the planner_names dictionary that is displayed in the plots inplace of the planner name.

planner_names = {
	# ...
	'planner': 'Desired title used in plots'
}

After compiling the benchmark executable, the new planner is now available from MPB, e.g. via the MPB.set_planners(["planner"]) helper function.