Autoware Actuation Demo Guide

This repository provides supporting instructions for building and flashing the ARM Safety Island Actuation Demo on the NXP S32Z real-time hardware. The guide is specifically tailored to the ARM Cortex-R Automotive Development System and serves as a reference for integrating real-time actuation with Autoware.

Source: © ARM, from the Actuation Demo Documentation

🛠 About

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This repository accompanies our efforts to deploy the controller components of Autoware on the S32Z board while keeping the rest of the Autoware stack (e.g., planning, perception) running on a standard Ubuntu host. The actuation logic is executed on the embedded board using Zephyr RTOS and communicates with the Autoware host via DDS.

Currently, the system is built and run inside a preconfigured Docker container on an ARM-based host system, as described in the official ARM Safety Island Actuation Demo documentation. All required tools and dependencies are configured correctly within this environment.

⚠️ Note: Support for newer Autoware versions and for x86 host systems is planned, but not implemented yet.

🔧 Installation & Build Instructions

⚙️ Build Instructions (Docker / ARM Host)

Follow the official Actuation Demo documentation to set up the Docker-based build environment.

⚠️ Build Considerations for the ARM Cortex-R Board

When working with the ARM Automotive Development System (not the NXP Eval Board):

• Use the revision D configuration to ensure proper UART output:

• To enable Ethernet support, include the arm_ethernet.overlay:

  west build -b <target_board> -- -DEXTRA_DTC_OVERLAY_FILE=arm_ethernet.overlay

🚀 Flashing Instructions

We recommend flashing the board via west, without using the S32 Design Studio GUI. The following command works reliably with the S32 Debug Probe:

west debug \
  --s32ds-path=/usr/local/NXP/S32DS.3.6.0/ \
  --elf-file ~/Desktop/actuation_demo_revision-D_arm-board.elf \
  --tool-opt='--batch'

Flashing Tips

• Always specify the S32DS path explicitly.
• Use the --elf-file flag to flash a specific build artifact.
• The --tool-opt='--batch' option ensures that flashing (not debugging) is executed.
• west flash does not work with the S32 Debug Probe.

📦 Physical Setup

The image below illustrates how to connect the ARM Cortex-R Automotive Development System to your host PC and the Autoware runtime system.

🔌 Connection Overview

• Serial (Console) Output

  • Used to read log messages from the board.
  • This is a read-only UART interface.
  • On Linux, the device typically appears as /dev/ttyUSB* and can be read with minicom, screen, or similar tools at 115200 baud.

• S32 Debug Probe

  • Used to flash and debug the firmware on the board.
  • Supports GDB-based debugging via west debug.
  • Can be connected to the development host via USB or Ethernet.
    • So far, only the USB connection has been used and verified.

• Ethernet (Data Communication)

  • Used for runtime communication between the Autoware system and the controller running on the board.
  • This is the only interface through which real-time actuation data is exchanged.

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⚠️ Debug Probe Not Detected?

When using Zephyr, some users encounter an issue where the debug probe is not detected at all during west debug.

If the error occurs immediately when trying to connect, this might be due to incorrect USB vendor/product IDs in the Zephyr runner script:

Check the following lines in your Zephyr installation:

# File: zephyr/scripts/west_commands/runners/nxp_s32dbg.py
NXP_S32DBG_USB_VID = 0x15a2
NXP_S32DBG_USB_PID = 0x0067

You can verify the correct values on your machine using:

lsusb

Look for a line like:

Bus 001 Device 004: ID 15a2:0067 NXP Semiconductors

If the IDs differ, you may need to manually update the values in the Python file above.

🚗 Run Autoware on ARM AVA Unit

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IMPORTANT:
This Docker container and instructions are only compatible with the legacy version of the Actuation Demo provided by ARM, which relies on the message converter architecture.

This setup does NOT support the latest Autoware versions or newer Actuation Demo releases.

The provided Docker image:

• Is built for ARM architecture to run on ARM-based hosts like the ARM Automotive Development System (AVA unit).
• Will NOT run on x86_64 hosts (typical Intel/AMD desktop or laptop CPUs).

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How to run

We provide a helper script files/run_autoware_docker.sh to start the Docker container with X11 forwarding enabled and automatically handle downloading map data and launching the Autoware simulation.

Usage:

chmod +x launch_autoware_actuation_demo_docker.sh
./launch_autoware_actuation_demo_docker.sh

This script performs the following steps:

• Enables X11 forwarding on the host (necessary for GUI applications inside Docker).
• Starts the Docker container with proper environment variables and volume mounts for X11 and authentication.
• Checks for the sample map inside the container and downloads/unzips it if missing.
• Sources the ROS 2 workspace inside the container.
• Launches the Autoware planning simulator with the sample vehicle and sensor models.

Alternative - Manually Run Autoware Docker on ARM AVA

This guide shows how to manually start the Docker container, forward X11 for GUI applications, download the sample map, and launch the Autoware simulation — all from the command line.

sudo xhost local:root

docker run -it \
  --net host \
  -v /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix:rw \
  -v "${HOME}/.Xauthority:${HOME}/.Xauthority:rw" \
  -e XAUTHORITY="${HOME}/.Xauthority" \
  -e DISPLAY="${DISPLAY}" \
  ghcr.io/tum-avs/autoware-actuation-demo-guide:running

mkdir -p ~/autoware_map
gdown -O ~/autoware_map/sample-map-planning.zip 'https://docs.google.com/uc?export=download&id=1499_nsbUbIeturZaDj7jhUownh5fvXHd'
unzip -d ~/autoware_map ~/autoware_map/sample-map-planning.zip

cd /actuation-demo/
source install/setup.bash

ros2 launch actuation_demos planning_simulator.launch.xml \
  map_path:=$HOME/autoware_map/sample-map-planning \
  vehicle_model:=sample_vehicle \
  sensor_model:=sample_sensor_kit

📦 Provided Files

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This repository includes:

• A prebuilt working ELF binary:

  ELF 32-bit LSB executable, ARM, EABI5 version 1 (SYSV),
  statically linked, with debug_info, not stripped
  

  This file was compiled for the ARM Cortex-R board (revision D) and confirmed to work in practice.

• An additional arm_ethernet.overlay file for enabling Ethernet routing on the ARM platform.

• A helper script run_autoware_docker.sh to start the Autoware Docker container (with Message converter)

👥 Maintainer

This project is maintained by Korbinian Moller at the Professorship of Autonomous Vehicle Systems (AVS) at the Technical University of Munich.

📜 License

This project is licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License. See the LICENSE file for full details.