Integrating BEVAI Models to Autoware Universe

[ramaseshanms-mcw]

Hello Team,

This is Ram from MulticoreWare. We are looking to integrate BEVAI models into the AW Universe perception pipeline.

We are studying the BEVDet Integration Issue and PR-7956 and the perception pipeline as a whole.

We would appreciate your inputs on the following questions:

1. Reg. this MoM item: What is the need to register as a external library package? Is this the same as a vendor package? Should all BEVAI models be registered in the same way?
2. Are there any teams actively working on the current PR for BEV-Det? How can MCW provide our support here?
3. Is there a plan for BEVAI Perception modules to be migrated to Autoware Core in future? If yes, we will plan to make such migration easier while designing the integration to universe itself.
4. Reg. Separate repo for CUDA dependencies called autoware_cuda_dependency_meta
   Should BEVAI models like BEVDet call this even if they are vendor packages?
5. Object Merger Nodes:
   Why are there two nodes, namely autoware_object_merger and autoware_simple_object_merger, for merging objects in the perception stack?
   Which one does Autoware prefer to use when it comes to real-time deployment?
   What is the specific reason for introducing the simple object merger, given that it has some drawbacks?

Looping in @mitsudome-r, @xmfcx, @Selventhiran-Rengaraj-MCW, @r-abishek, @cyn-liu

[liuXinGangChina]

Hello， @ramaseshanms-mcw

Thanks for your proactive suggestion on integrating bev series model into autoware.

Of course, you can help by continuing the task in this pr following the rules commented by the perception developer team.

Please feel free to leave your comment here or in the pr-7956

Best regards

心刚

[amadeuszsz]

@ramaseshanms-mcw
For BEV "family" modules, soon we will have BEVFusion.