Use solver in C++ environment

martk · July 24, 2020, 8:36am

Hi,

I use Matlab for developing and testing an acados-based trajectory planner with “external” costs (some custom casadi expression) and nonlinear constraints. Now, as it is working quite well, I want to use the solver in a C++ environment.

As a starting point I tried to run the file examples/acados_matlab_octave/test/test_template_pendulum_exact_hess.m, but I get the following error:

Invalid MEX-file '/home/martin/Programs/acados/examples/acados_matlab_octave/test/c_generated_code/acados_mex_create_pendulum_12.mexa64':
libacados_solver_pendulum_12.so: Kann die Shared-Object-Datei nicht öffnen: Datei oder Verzeichnis nicht gefunden

Error in pendulum_12_mex_solver (line 49)
            [obj.C_ocp, obj.C_ocp_ext_fun] = acados_mex_create_pendulum_12();

Error in test_template_pendulum_exact_hess (line 230)
eval( command );

The library “libacados_solver_pendulum_12.so” exists and “env.sh” has been sourced.

The script also creates an executable “main_pendulum_12”. Executing it on the Linux terminal shows a message that the solver failed:

solved ocp 20 times, solution printed above

acados_solve() failed with status 2.
iter	res_stat	res_eq		res_ineq	res_comp	qp_stat	qp_iter
0	2.983170e+03	3.222873e-34	8.000000e+01	1.926688e-13	0	0	
1	2.918394e+03	1.613408e+00	2.842171e-14	4.010854e-12	0	26	
2	4.290017e+06	7.006226e-01	2.131628e-14	6.714643e-11	0	96	
3	2.534256e+07	3.543291e-01	2.842171e-14	2.672135e-09	0	66	
4	1.099874e+06	1.625941e-01	2.842171e-14	1.533269e-10	0	19	
5	8.600711e+04	4.495132e-01	2.842171e-14	2.760462e-12	0	23	
6	7.024937e+03	4.735697e-03	2.842171e-14	8.234110e-13	0	4	
7	5.073018e+03	2.347654e-03	2.842171e-14	7.624340e-13	0	4	
8	7.789544e+03	2.473886e-03	2.842171e-14	1.766978e-09	0	3	
9	1.393847e+04	2.694400e-04	2.842171e-14	7.348139e-13	0	4	
10	8.644086e+03	1.423744e-04	2.842171e-14	7.433332e-09	0	4	
11	3.547731e+03	6.918803e-04	2.842171e-14	2.477976e-12	0	7	
12	3.478863e+03	1.326819e-03	1.421085e-14	3.615094e-13	0	5	
13	2.432628e+03	5.960200e-04	2.842171e-14	2.091413e-13	0	7	
14	2.079797e+03	1.570108e-03	2.842171e-14	3.377245e-09	0	3	
15	1.624506e+03	1.535857e-03	2.842171e-14	4.023157e-10	0	3	
16	1.916180e+03	4.048779e-03	2.842171e-14	1.231210e-10	0	3	
17	1.779184e+03	5.714423e-03	2.842171e-14	2.928617e-09	0	4	
18	1.394559e+03	1.649639e-03	2.842171e-14	1.526257e-10	0	5	
19	3.874411e+03	7.229318e-04	2.842171e-14	2.206416e-13	0	4	
20	1.434431e+03	1.509977e-02	2.842171e-14	9.879914e-11	0	6	
21	6.456054e+03	1.611307e-01	2.842171e-14	2.678858e-13	0	15	
22	2.878643e+03	8.516379e-03	2.842171e-14	2.310234e-10	0	6	
23	1.478734e+03	1.716601e-03	2.842171e-14	3.544088e-10	0	5	
24	3.431734e+03	3.470492e-03	2.842171e-14	1.747310e-13	0	4	
25	3.808968e+03	2.627217e-03	2.842171e-14	1.763849e-13	0	4	
26	1.609417e+03	2.092503e-02	2.842171e-14	1.782162e-13	0	4	
27	1.750903e+03	7.301649e-04	2.842171e-14	1.918445e-13	0	4	
28	1.751243e+03	1.117980e-03	2.842171e-14	1.282848e-10	0	3	
29	1.808320e+03	1.051385e-03	2.842171e-14	2.188382e-13	0	4	
30	0.000000e+00	0.000000e+00	0.000000e+00	0.000000e+00	0	4	

Solver info:
 SQP iterations 30
 minimum time for 20 solve 245.271000 [ms]
 KKT 1.808320e+03

Any ideas what the problem is?

BR
Martin

martk · July 28, 2020, 1:13pm

Hi,

does ocp.generate_c_code only work for least squares cost functions? Whenever I add some expressions to expr_ext_cost of the “pendulum_on_cart_model” and set cost_type to ext_cost or auto the code generation fails.

P.S.: I don’t need support for the other 2 issues in my last post any more

BR
Martin

FreyJo · July 29, 2020, 7:36am

Hi Martin

yes, it is not supported for external cost at the moment.
I could make some efforts to implement that.

How did you fix the previous issues?

Best,
Jonathan

martk · July 29, 2020, 11:45am

Hi Jonathan,

for me it is essential to get the solver running in C++ as soon as possible. I understand if you do not have the time to solve this immediately. So could you please give me some hints in which files I have to add what?

At the moment I really don’t know where to start and what to do.

Regarding the problems in my initial post:

1st issue: Invalid MEX-File error

In Linux (Ubuntu 18.04) the current Matlab (R2019b) working directory seems to be not considered as runtime search path for libraries. However, it uses the environment variable LD_RUN_PATH. Therefore, adding export LD_RUN_PATH="$(pwd)"/c_generated_code to “env.sh” solves this problem on my machine.

2nd issue: solver in “main_pendulum_12” fails

In file “main_pendulum_12.c” one can see that the initial guess of the x-trajectory is set to zero. If it is set to the same value as in the Matlab script (“test_template_pendulum_exact_hess.m”) the solver succeeds.

BR
Martin

FreyJo · July 29, 2020, 1:53pm

Hi Martin,

I quickly added support for external cost on this branch:

Please test running the following, after cleaning the build folder in the Matlab example:

github.com

acados/acados/blob/master/examples/acados_matlab_octave/test/test_template_pendulum_ocp.m

%
% Copyright 2019 Gianluca Frison, Dimitris Kouzoupis, Robin Verschueren,
% Andrea Zanelli, Niels van Duijkeren, Jonathan Frey, Tommaso Sartor,
% Branimir Novoselnik, Rien Quirynen, Rezart Qelibari, Dang Doan,
% Jonas Koenemann, Yutao Chen, Tobias Schöls, Jonas Schlagenhauf, Moritz Diehl
%
% This file is part of acados.
%
% The 2-Clause BSD License
%
% Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
% modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
%
% 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice,
% this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
%
% 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice,
% this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation
% and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
%

This file has been truncated. show original

using

test_template_pendulum_ocp('ext_cost')

Let me know, if it also works for your problem.

Cheers,
Jonathan

martk · July 30, 2020, 9:25am

Hi Jonathan,

thank you for the quick extensions. Your example test_template_pendulum_ocp('ext_cost') works now. Unfortunately this is not the case for my own project. After calling ocp.generate_c_code I get the following output:

Warning: model parameters value cannot be defined (yet) for ocp json.
Using zeros(np,1) by default.
You can update them later using the solver object. 
> In set_up_acados_ocp_nlp_json (line 161)
  In acados_ocp/generate_c_code (line 168)
  In main (line 182) 
Reference to non-existent field 'dyn_expr_f'.

Error in set_up_acados_ocp_nlp_json (line 385)
        ocp_json.model.f_impl_expr = model.dyn_expr_f;

Error in acados_ocp/generate_c_code (line 168)
            obj.acados_ocp_nlp_json = set_up_acados_ocp_nlp_json(obj);

Error in main (line 182)
    ocp.generate_c_code

The warning at the top seems to be related to the fact that I use parameters. Is that a problem?

The error comes from using a discrete-time model. This is what I do before creating the OCP-object:

ocp_model.set('dyn_type', 'discrete');
ocp_model.set('dyn_expr_phi', model.expr_phi);

So the field “dyn_expr_f” does not exist in my case.

BR
Martin

FreyJo · July 30, 2020, 10:31am

Hi Martin,

unfortunately, discrete time formulations are not yet supported by the template based workflow.
Adding support for this will take a bit more time then for the external cost.

If you want to help, you can add a test in Matlab that first runs the native Matlab code with discrete dynamics and then tries to do the same with the template based workflow.
One will have to add some checks on the dyn_type, such that dyn_expr_f is not needed, modify the Python templates in https://github.com/acados/acados/tree/master/interfaces/acados_template/acados_template/c_templates_tera
and do some more modifications.

I will not have time for this very soon.
But if you can prepare a branch doing this as far as you get, it might speed up the process.

Best,
Jonathan

martk · July 30, 2020, 3:50pm

I’ve started to work on the test script in Matlab in a new local git branch. How can I share this with you?
I have no permissions to push this branch on the acados repo.

BR
Martin

FreyJo · July 31, 2020, 9:51am

Just fork acados on Github, push the branch on your fork and send me a link.