Jackal Cartographer Demo

This tutorial shows you how to use move_base with Google Cartographer to perform autonomous planning and movement with simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM), on a simulated Jackal, or a factory-standard Jackal with a laser scanner publishing on the /front/scan topic.

To adapt this demo to your own Jackal, you may need to clone the jackal_cartographer_navigation repository, and modify the relevant parameters. To learn about move_base and the navigation stack, see the Navigation Tutorials. To learn more about Google Cartographer for ROS, see the Cartographer ROS documentation.

Instructions

1. To get started with 2-D SLAM using Google Cartographer, clone this repository into your working directory (e.g. catkin_ws):

   git clone http://github.com/jackal/jackal_cartographer_navigation.git

2. Install the dependencies in your workspace (e.g. catkin_ws):

   rosdep install --from-paths src --ignore-src --rosdistro=$ROS_DISTRO -y

3. Build the workspace and open two new terminal/tabs, source the workspace for each terminal/tab:

   source devel/setup.bash

   • Launch the Gazebo simulation with the front_laser config:

     roslaunch jackal_gazebo jackal_world.launch config:=front_laser

   • Launch the Cartographer node to begin SLAM:

     roslaunch jackal_cartographer_navigation cartographer_demo.launch

   • Launch Rviz: roslaunch jackal_viz view_robot.launch

4. In the Rviz visualizer, make sure the visualizers in the Navigation group are enabled.

5. Use the 2D Nav Goal tool in the top toolbar to select a movement goal in the visualizer. Make sure to select an unoccupied (dark grey) or unexplored (light grey) location.

6. As the robot moves, you should see the grey static map (map topic) grow. There might be discrete jumps in the map as the Cartographer algorithm attempts to localize the robot.

1. To save the generated map, you can run the map_saver utility:

   rosrun map_server map_saver -f <filename>

Tuning Cartographer

To tune Cartographer for low latency SLAM, edit the jackal.lua configuration file found in the jackal_cartographer_navigation/config directory.

For more information on tuning, click here

Changelog for package jackal_cartographer_navigation

0.0.1 (2020-02-20)

• Updated maintainer.
• Removed rviz to use jackal_viz.
• Merge pull request #2 from ljazzal/master Update dependencies to use cartographer_ros pkg instead of building from source
• added back use_odometry config
• minor changes to install instructions
• added cartographer_ros as run_depend
• removed unused file
• Updated install instructions
• tuned cartographer parameters
• Using deb release of cartographer_ros
• minor changes to install
• Changed repo link
• Update README.md
• Updated emails
• Set version number to 0.0.0
• Revert "Remove use_landmarks and landmark_sampling_ratio" This reverts commit f48f031eb44f376c98351e7ae8b09779b49b9ac8
• Checkout latest working commits for Cartographer and Cartographer ROS
• Remove use_landmarks and landmark_sampling_ratio
• Update script to use version 0.3.0 of Cartographer and Cartographer ROS packages
• Update README.md
• Update README.md
• Created catkin package for repository and modified configuration file to reflect changes made in official Cartographer repository
• Created catkin package for repository and modified configuration file to reflect changes made in official Cartographer repository
• Update README.md
• Update protobuf3_local.sh to clone jackal repository
• Update README.md
• Update README.md
• Update README.md
• Created tutorial on how to use Cartographer
• Updated script to clone jackal_desktop and jackal_simulator into workspace
• Removed unnecessary files
• Changed mapping resolution
• Removed jackal_desktop and jackal_simulation
• Merge branch 'tuning-slam' of http://gitlab.clearpathrobotics.com/research/jackal_cartographer_navigation into tuning-slam
• Minor README changes
• Delete protobuf3_local.sh~
• Delete jackal.lua~
• Fixed address in install script
• Minor README changes
• Minor README changes
• Minor README changes
• Added setup steps in README
• Minor changes to Google Cartographer install script
• Initial Commit
• Contributors: Aditya Bhattacharjee, Tony Baltovski, ljazzal