Connecting my Custom Robot to ROS

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asked 2012-04-17 01:15:03 -0600

MarkyMark2012
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updated 2014-01-28 17:11:59 -0600

ngrennan
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Hi All,

I wanted to get and idea of your thoughts on the best way to "connect"/use ROS with my own robot. I've long since written code/custom navigation for my robot which is fitted with the usual suspects (X&Y coordinates/Gyro/Sonar and IR range finders).

I'd like to have a play around with ROS but I'm not sure the best place to start?

My robot sends it a telemetry stream and accepts motion commands (et al). Do I some how interface with this stream on the PC - via the Server I'd built. Therefore I don’t actually need to worry about writing new code for the MPU. Or something else?

I'd really appreciate some guidance. Also would the SLAM stack work OOTB with Sonar data?

Many Thanks in Advance (Probably more questions to follow)

Mark

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Okay still looking around - I found ros_comm. The initial entry point into the host PC for my robot is a serial port, but is then looked after by a server (TCP/IP)...is there something similar I can connect to this with? Then read in the data and slice it up into the various sensor parts?

MarkyMark2012 ( 2012-04-17 04:53:33 -0600 )edit

rosbridge I'm guessing - then what would be the best place to break up the data and untimatly create a sonar based map? (Sorry partly answering - I think - my own questions as I go here??) Yes/No/Barking up the totally wrong tree?

MarkyMark2012 ( 2012-04-17 05:04:06 -0600 )edit

from there rip up the sensor data and publish thus: http://www.ros.org/wiki/navigation/Tutorials/RobotSetup/Sensors?http://www.ros.org/wiki/navigation/Tutorials/RobotSetup

MarkyMark2012 ( 2012-04-17 06:09:29 -0600 )edit

Can you give some more details of the code you have now? For example, if it currently pushes bits over a network socket to some listener, is it pushing all of the data (controls, sensors, etc.) or are there several different streams?

Mac ( 2012-04-23 14:05:50 -0600 )edit

Yep - I have a server app which is basically not much more than a RS232 Port to Socket converter (I realize I could use rosserial here but I want to keep the svr my homebrew navigation apps use it). XML telemetry stream - sensors/position/control cmds etc back and fourth from the host PC to the bot

MarkyMark2012 ( 2012-04-23 19:15:02 -0600 )edit

More info here - http://www.toeminator.com/Toeminator/HostControlSystem/HostControlSystem.htm (A bit out of date now...)

MarkyMark2012 ( 2012-04-23 21:13:49 -0600 )edit

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answered 2012-04-24 06:33:11 -0600

Mac

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As I understand your system (from the commentary above), what you want to do is write a ROS node that acts as a bridge.

Code already running on your robot transmits XML; you write a ROS node that listens on a socket for these data, and then transforms them into ROS messages, and republishes them. Similarly, that node listens on ROS topics for commands (for example, Twist messages on /cmd_vel), translates them into your robot's XML format, and transmits them to the robot.

Your sonar data are probably best published as a sensor_msgs/LaserScan message (note that doing SLAM with sonar data is...tricky; it's worth a try, though). The canonical ROS way of sending robot instructions is a geometry_msgs/Twist message published to /cmd_vel; those two, plus some tf frames, should be enough to get you started.

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Great thanks Mac!

MarkyMark2012 ( 2012-04-24 12:15:59 -0600 )edit

Accept the answer? (Karma!)

Mac ( 2012-04-25 04:25:47 -0600 )edit

Oopps - I've made it so :)

MarkyMark2012 ( 2012-04-25 21:56:31 -0600 )edit

Is 'joy' an example of a bridge node?

vvyogi ( 2017-03-26 14:29:08 -0600 )edit

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answered 2012-04-24 15:52:57 -0600

Newbee
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Hello there , I am a newbee for ROS. I don't know and I wanna know which of c++ or python is good to start ?

Can you post some very basic tuts who are reading this post and thank you.

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This is not a forum. Please don't pose non-answers as answers. If you have a specific question, first search if it has been answered before and create a new question.

Lorenz ( 2012-04-24 21:00:39 -0600 )edit

Plus, if you post this as a real question, I'll even answer it for you.

Mac ( 2012-04-25 04:25:11 -0600 )edit

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