Object Context Subscription

# Introduction

Context subscriptions are allowing the obtaining of specific values from surrounding objects of a certain so called "EGO" object. With these data one can determine the traffic status around that EGO object. Such an EGO Object can be any possible Vehicle, inductive loop, points-of-interest, and such like. A vehicle driving through a city, for example, is surrounded by a lot of different and changing vehicles, lanes, junctions, or points-of-interest along his ride. Context subscriptions can provide selected variables of those objects that surround the EGO object within a certain range.

Note

The EGO object itself is included in the context subscription result when its domain is queried (e.g. a vehicle is always in the set of all vehicles in range of itself).

The subscription for a structure's context is initiated using a "Subscribe ... Context" command (0x80-0x8e). The command is evaluated immediately on request, verifying it this way. It returns a "Subscribe ... Context" response (0x90-0x9e). If EGO is a vehicle, the subscription is descheduled as soon as the vehicle leaves the simulation.

As soon as the subscription was accepted, it is executed after each call of Simulation Step(2) command.

The command ID describes the type of the EGO-object which is the center of the context; currently, the following EGO-objects are supported:

Type | Command ID | Notes
--- | --- | ---
inductive loops | 0x80 |
lanes | 0x83 |
vehicles | 0x84 |
points-of-interest | 0x87 |
polygons | 0x88 |
junctions | 0x89 |
edges | 0x8a |

For a given EGO-structure, each subscription allows to address multiple variables from structures of a certain kind. This means, if you have an EGO-vehicle, you may ask for speeds and positions of vehicles in range of EGO. If you also need information about surrounding points-of-interest, you have to add a further context subscription for PoIs. Vehicles, and PoIs belong to different "context domains". The following domains are available:

Type | Context Domain ID | Notes
--- | --- | ---
inductive loops | 0xa0 | retrievable variables
lanes | 0xa3 | retrievable variables
vehicles | 0xa4 | retrievable variables
points-of-interest | 0xa7 | retrievable variables
polygons | 0xa8 | retrievable variables
junctions | 0xa9 | retrievable variables
edges | 0xaa | retrievable variables

For each domain, the same variables can be retrieved as using the Get ... Variable commands (see above).

# Command 0x8X: Subscribe ... Context

time | time | string | ubyte | double | ubyte | ubyte[n]
--- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | ---
begin Time | end Time | Object ID | Context Domain | Context Range | Variable Number | The list of variables to return

Some notes:

- begin Time: the subscription is executed only in time steps >= this value; in ms
- end Time: the subscription is executed in time steps <= this value; the subscription is removed if the simulation has reached a higher time step; in ms
- Context Domain: the type of objects in the addressed object's surroundings to ask values from
- Context Range: the radius of the surroundings
- The size of the variables list must be equal to the field "Variable Number".

# Response 0x9X: ... Subscription Response

string | ubyte | ubyte | int | string | ubyte | ubyte | ubyte | <return_type> | ... | ubyte | ubyte | ubyte | <return_type> | ... | string | ubyte | ubyte | ubyte | <return_type> | ... | ubyte | ubyte | ubyte | <return_type>
--- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | ---
Object ID | Context Domain | Variable Count | Objects Count | Object #1 ID | Object #1 / Variable #1 Id | Object #1 / Variable #1 status | Object #1 / Return type of the variable #1 | Object #1 / <VALUE#1> | ... | Object #1 / Variable #n Id | Object #1 / Variable #n status | Object #1 / Return type of the variable #n | Object #1 / <VALUE#n> | ... | Object #m ID | Object #m / Variable #1 Id | Object #m / Variable #1 status | Object #m / Return type of the variable #1 | Object #m / <VALUE#1> | ... | Object #m / Variable #n Id | Object #m / Variable #n status | Object #m / Return type of the variable #n | Object #m / <VALUE#n>

The response to a "Subscribe ... Variable".

The status is 0x00 (RTYPE_OK) if the variable could be retrieved successfully. If not, the status is 0xff (RTYPE_ERR). In the second case, the variable type is set to string and the variable value contains the error message. Please note, that the status should be ok in all cases.

- Variable Count is the number of returned variables per object
- Objects Count is the number of objects in range

This implies that n*m values are returned (Variable Count * Objects Count).

# Command 0x7E: Add Context Subscription Filter

ubyte | [ubyte] | [double/list(byte)/list(string)]
--- | --- | ---
filter type | parameter type | parameter value

When adding a context subscription filter, it is applied to the vehicle context subscription (command ID 0x84) that was created most recently.

Note

Context subscription filters are only supported for ego objects of type 'vehicle'.

Currently, the following context subscription filter types are implemented:

filter name | filter type | parameter value | description | uses context range
--- | --- | --- | --- | ---
lanes | 0x01 | list(byte) | only return vehicles on list of lanes relative to ego vehicle | no
no-opposite | 0x02 | - | exclude vehicles on opposite (and other) lanes | yes
downstream distance | 0x03 | double | only return vehicles within the given downstream distance | no
upstream distance | 0x04 | double | only return vehicles within the given maximal upstream distance | no
leader/follower | 0x05 | - | only return leader and follower on the specified lanes (requires 'lanes' filter) | no
turn | 0x07 | - | only return foes on upcoming junctions | no
vClass | 0x08 | list(string) | only return vehicles of the given vClass(es) | yes
vType | 0x09 | list(string) | only return vehicles of the given vType(s) | yes
field of vision | 0x0A | double | only return vehicles within field of vision (angle in degrees) | yes
lateral distance | 0x0B | double | only return vehicles within the given lateral distance | no

### Intercompatibility

While the context subscription filters can - in principal - be combined, be aware that not all combinations will work (or at least not as expected). This is due to the fact that a sub-class of the filters (see last column 'uses context range' above) does not operate on the set of objects collected within the context subscription's range but operates on the set of objects defined by their respective filter parameters instead. Consequently, a combination of, e.g., the field-of-vision and lateral distance filter is infeasible.

# Client library methods

- In the python library, all domains support the methods subscribeContext and unsubscribeContext
- For the python client several methods for adding context filters for vehicle-to-vehicle context subscriptions are included.
- In the C++ library, the method simulation.subscribeContext takes an additional argument that encodes the source domain

# Notes

- When asking for domains "point-of-interest" and "polygon", the current version does not support asking for these structures when their position was changed using TraCI

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