ROS packages for *pre-planned* path navigation rather than path generation? (Turtlebot3)
Hello! I am working on a project in which users will create paths fully constrained in terms of position (using a separate piece of software), and a robot will periodically follow those paths. We are using a Turtlebot3 for this project, which comes with lots of support for path planning. However, because we already know exactly what paths we want the robot to follow, this functionality (and related ROS packages) is not very useful for us. I am wondering if there are already reliable ROS packages for following pre-defined paths, rather than path generation. Our paths will include: -Straight lines -Rotations around a point -Circles -Circular arcs
We can define the paths in terms of coordinates or geometric qualities (radius, distance, angle). Turtlebot comes with a node for navigating to a given coordinate, which I’ve adapted to go to a series of coordinates, and is very useful for straight lines and rotations. However, it is not good for following circles, as its algorithm sends the robot to the specified coordinate then rotates to the specified angle. (turtlebot3_pointop_key in https://wiki.ros.org/turtlebot3_example)
I know it would not be very hard to create this functionality on my own (I’ve already written a few basic algorithms for circle and arc navigation) but I would prefer to use a package if one already exists. Or if someone knows a reliable way to add circle functionality to the pointop_key node. Please note that we would prefer to work in Python if possible. Thank you!
