Autonomy Software Binder

Central engineering reference and operations manual for the MRDT Autonomy Software.

View the Project on GitHub MissouriMRDT/Autonomy_Software

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CMake Build Configuration & Options

The autonomy software utilizes CMake (version 3.24.3 or newer) as its meta-build system. The build configuration enforces modern C++20 language standards, compiler constraints, and aggressive compile-time optimizations to support high-performance embedded execution on the NVIDIA Jetson platform.

1. Compiler and Toolchain Constraints

Mandatory GCC 10 Enforcement

The top-level CMakeLists.txt executes a pre-configuration check verifying the host compiler version:

execute_process(
    COMMAND gcc -dumpversion
    OUTPUT_VARIABLE GCC_VERSION
    OUTPUT_STRIP_TRAILING_WHITESPACE
)
if(NOT GCC_VERSION VERSION_EQUAL "10.0")
    message(FATAL_ERROR "Only GCC 10.0 is allowed! Detected GCC version ${GCC_VERSION}.")
endif()

Rationale: Strict binary compatibility with NVIDIA JetPack 5.x, CUDA 11.4/12.x, and LibTorch runtime libraries requires GCC 10. Attempting to build with GCC 9 or GCC 11+ produces ABI incompatibilities or internal compiler segmentation faults during TorchScript and TensorRT template expansions.

C++ and CUDA Standards

2. Performance & Compilation Optimizations

  1. LLD Linker Integration: 
    if(NOT MSVC)
    add_link_options("-fuse-ld=lld")
endif()

    Replaces the default GNU ld or gold linkers with LLVM’s lld. This reduces final binary link times by up to 70% and substantially curtails peak RAM consumption on RAM-constrained Jetson systems.

  2. CMake Unity Builds: 
    set(CMAKE_UNITY_BUILD ON)
set(CMAKE_UNITY_BUILD_BATCH_SIZE 8)

    Aggregates up to 8 translation units into unified compilation files. This dramatically reduces redundant header parsing overhead (particularly heavy headers like OpenCV, LibTorch, and ZED SDK), speeding up full builds and minimizing compiler process swapping.

3. Build Types

Specify the build type during CMake generation:

cmake -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=<Type>

4. Configurable CMake Options

Options are toggled via -D<OPTION>=ON|OFF during configuration:

Option Default Output Executable Description
BUILD_SIM_MODE OFF Autonomy_Software_Sim (when ON) Defines __AUTONOMY_SIM_MODE__=1. Switches sensor streams to consume WebRTC pixel streaming and local loopback sockets from Unreal Engine RoveSoSimulator.
BUILD_TESTS_MODE OFF tests/* Enables CTest and builds GoogleTest unit and integration test suites in tests/.
ENABLE_LIDAR_GEO_UTESTS OFF N/A Enables specialized LiDAR database query and GeoPlanner unit tests that require physical USGS LiDAR data tiles (available from MissouriMRDT/USGS_Data).
BUILD_CODE_COVERAGE OFF N/A Injects GCC profiling flags (-O0 -g -fprofile-arcs -ftest-coverage --coverage) to generate gcov/lcov coverage reports in CI pipelines.
BUILD_COVERAGE_WATCH OFF N/A Enables real-time code coverage file-watching mode for development workflows.
BUILD_VERBOSE_MODE OFF N/A Generates verbose Makefiles displaying all raw compiler and linker commands during compilation.
BUILD_EXAMPLES_MODE OFF examples/* Compiles standalone hardware verification examples for isolated subsystem testing.
LINK_SHARED_ZED ON N/A Links dynamically against the ZED SDK shared libraries (sl::Camera). Set to OFF if using custom static ZED builds.
RC_CROSS_COMPILE OFF N/A Cross-compiles the RoveComm communication library for both Linux and Windows environments.
LIST_ALL_VARS OFF N/A Dumps all active internal CMake cache variables and include paths to the console during configuration.

5. Subsystem Dependencies

The CMake build automatically locates and links the following system packages: