[This page is obsolete and is related to the first version of the ROS node written before migrating to “Officine Robotiche” software and firmware]
RoboController-ROS allows to the robots based on RoboController board to be controlled by ROS framework. RoboController-ROS is based on ROS Indigo, the latest stable release.
If you are entering the world of ROS I suggest you to read this good book: A Gentle Introduction to ROS. It is available free in pdf mode and you can buy it by Amazon if you prefer the paper.
It is based on the previous release of ROS (Hydro), but it is enough general such that you cannot notice it.
Installation
- Install ROS on a Linux machine (follow the tutorial) or download the latest VM ready for ROS from Nootrix
- Open a new terminal (Ctrl + Alt + t)
- Install libModbus (i.e. sudo apt-get install libmodbus-dev)
- Go to your ROS workspace (e.g. cd ~/catkin_ws on the Virtual Machine) or create one if you never did it before entering (e.g. mkdir ~/catkin_ws then cd ~/catkin_ws)
- Create src directory in the workspace if it does not exist (i.e. mkdir src)
- Go to src folder (i.e. cd src)
- Get RoboController-ROS code (i.e. git clone https://github.com/Myzhar/RoboController-ROS.git)
- Go back to your workspace root (e.g. cd ~/catkin_ws)
- Compile the new package (i.e. catkin_make) [Note: catkin_make command must be launched always in the root of your workspace!]
- Source the new package (i.e. source devel/setup.bash) [Note: you can add source devel/setup.bash at the end of your ~/.bashrc file to avoid to type the command each time you open a new terminal]
Usage
You are now ready to start robocontroller_node:
- rosrun robocontroller robocontroller_node to run the node with default params
- roslaunch robocontroller robocontroller_simul.launch to run the node in simulation mode
- roslaunch robocontroller robocontroller_myzharbot.launch to run the node with parameters for MyzharBot
- copy and modify yaml files in config folder to configure your robot
- you can control the robot using Qt widget provided by rqt package: (i.e. launch rqt, add a Robot Steering widget, the message should be /cmd_vel )
- you can plot the Telemetry and the Pose of the robot adding one or more plot widgets and subscribing to the messages /robocontroller/Telemetry and /robocontroller/Pose
You can write and debug the code that you write for ROS using QtCreator: follow this guide
