robotont_driver

ROS driver package for robotont.

This package handles low-level communication between ROS and robotont hardware.

1. Installing and starting the driver

1. Install Ubuntu 22.04

2. Install ROS 2 Rolling and create a workspace Creating a workspace

3. Pull driver repo and install ROS dependencies

Navigate to workspace root folder

sudo rosdep init
rosdep update
rosdep install --from-paths src -y --ignore-src

The driver also relies on the following packages: * 1: io-context * 2: serial-driver * 3: asio-cmake-module

sudo apt install ros-humble-io-context ros-humble-serial-driver ros-humble-asio-cmake-module

4. Build the driver

Ensure you are in your workspace root folder and enter the following commands to install them:

colcon build

5. Source install files and start the driver using the launch configuration

source install/local_setup.bash
ros2 launch robotont_driver driver_launch.py

Launch parameters are defined in 3 different places. With the following hierarchy (lower number overwrites lower number): * 1: The parameters specified via command line, when using the launch file * 2: The parameters defined in the launch file * 3: The parameters hardcoded in the driver code

To change the launch parameters once, they can also be specified via the command line:

ros2 launch robotont_driver driver_launch.py device_name:='/dev/ttyACM0'

2. Moving the robot

The drivers for the simulated and the real robot both subscribe to a cmd_vel topic. To move the robot, we have to publish velocity messages to this exact topic.

Here we use the teleop_twist_keyboard node, which translates command line keypresses to velocity messages and published these by default on cmd_vel topic. Run the node

ros2 run teleop_twist_keyboard teleop_twist_keyboard

• Follow the printout in the console to learn how to control the robot. Enjoy the ride!

3. Available plugins

plugin_odom

This plugin receives the ODOM packet from the robot and publishes the data on /odom (<:odometry>) topic. This plugin also broadcasts an odom frame via TF.

plugin_motor

This plugin subscribes to cmd_vel topic and relays the velocities to robotont's motors