Gazebo and Real world Contact Sensors.

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Hi,

I want to simulate a Service robot which features bumpers and also I want to build a real one. Now the question is, what topics to use? The Bumper plugin for Gazebo outputs a lot of information on the contact, but I only want to know if it is pressed or not. Also when it is in the Gazebo package, I guess it should be used for simulation only, right?

What topic shall I use for real sensors?

Bool?

And how to interface Gazebo? Do I have to write my own node to get the pressed state from the topic? Or is there somehing ready to use?

How do I interface this to already available ROS planing systems? Is there a common way to do this? Or do I have to add Obstacles to the costmap myself somehow, when a bumper is being pressed?

Thanks!