Orocos RTT / ROS Integration Packages

Introduction

This repository contains ROS packages necessary for building OROCOS libraries, plugins, and components which communicate with the ROS messaging system and the ROS parameter server.

Changelog

See the metapackage rtt_ros_integration/CHANGELOG.rst for a comprehensive changelog.

Packages

The packages in this repository provide:

• rtt_ros ROS package import plugin as well as wrapper scripts and launchfiles for using Orocos with ROS.
• rtt_rosclock Realtime-Safe NTP clock measurement and ROS Time structure construction as well as a simulation-clock-based periodic RTT activity.
• rtt_rosnode Plugin for ROS node instantiation inside an Orocos program.
• rtt_rosparam Plugin for synchronizing ROS parameters with Orocos component properties.
• rtt_roscomm ROS message typekit generation and Orocos plugin for publishing and subscribing to ROS topics as well as calling and responding to ROS services.
• rtt_rosdeployment An RTT service which advertises common DeploymentComponent operations as ROS services.
• rtt_rospack Plugin for locating ROS resources.
• rtt_tf RTT-Plugin which uses tf to allow RTT components to lookup and publish transforms.
• rtt_actionlib RTT-Enabled actionlib action server for providing actions from ROS-integrated RTT components.
• rtt_dynamic_reconfigure A service plugin that implements a dynamic_reconfigure server to update properties dynamically during runtime.
• rtt_ros_msgs ROS .msg and .srv types for use with these plugins.
• rtt_ros_integration Catkin metapackage for this repository.

See each package’s README.md file for more information.

Usage

For numerous examples of usage, see the rtt_ros_examples stack.

Installing Orocos From Binary Packages

The Orocos toolchain and the rtt_ros_integration packages are available as binary packages hosted by the Open Source Robotics Foundation (OSRF) and can be installed on supported operating systems.

Building Orocos From Source

The Orocos Toolchain can be built from source in a Catkin workspace using catkin_build_isolated since Orocos packages now contain Catkin package.xml files.

First, create an isolated underlay for building plain CMake-based packages like Orocos:

export OROCOS_TARGET=gnulinux
mkdir -p ~/ws/underlay_isolated/src/orocos
cd ~/ws/underlay_isolated
git clone --recursive https://github.com/orocos-toolchain/orocos_toolchain.git src/orocos/orocos_toolchain
catkin_make_isolated --install
source install_isolated/setup.sh

Then, in the same shell, create an underlay for building Catkin-based packages:

mkdir -p ~/ws/underlay/src
cd ~/ws/underlay
git clone https://github.com/orocos/rtt_ros_integration.git src/rtt_ros_integration
catkin_make
source devel/setup.sh

At this point you can create Catkin or rosbuild packages which use the rtt_ros_integration tools.

Creating an Orocos-ROS Package

The Orocos and ROS communities have both standardized on using CMake for building source code, and have also both developed independent CMake macros for assisting the process. The ROS community has developed catkin and the Orocos toolchain uses Orocos-specific macros. These macros are used for exporting (declaring) and retreiving inter-package dependencies. It’s a good, conflict-preventing, practice to decide when a package should be characterized by Catkin-based or Orocos-based macros.

Any package that builds orocos targets (plugins, components, executables, etc) needs_to call the orocos_generate_package() macro so that the appropriate platform-specific pkg-config .pc files are generated. These packages can _depend on ROS libraries, but they should avoid exporting headers, libraries, or other resources via the catkin_package() macro.

A simple Orocos-ROS package looks like the following:

``` my_orocos_pkg

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