ROS Bridge

The ROS Bridge allows to integrate PlatformPilot into a ROS environment, such that it is possible to control the platform via ROS as well as visualize all data in RViz.

Installation

It is assumed that a ROS workspace has already been setup on the platform’s PC, for example ~/ros_workspace/. See https://docs.neobotix.de/display/TUT/Client+PC+Setup for more information.

To install the ROS Bridge:

cd ~/ros_workspace/src/
git clone https://github.com/neobotix/pilot-ros-bridge.git
cd ~/ros_workspace/
catkin_make

The package depends on an already installed neobotix-pilot-core or neobotix-pilot-gtkgui package.

Running

To run the ROS bridge on the platform:

source ~/ros_workspace/devel/setup.bash
roslaunch pilot_ros_bridge mpo_700.launch

Replace mpo_700.launch with mpo_500.launch or mp_400.launch, depending on your platform.

It is also possible to run the ROS bridge on another PC, by adapting the pilot_node param in the launch file:

<param name="pilot_node" type="str" value="192.168.0.50:5555"/>

Replace 192.168.0.50 with the actual IP address of the platform.

In addition you can disable user authentication on the TCP server to allow for all functionality via the ROS Bridge. To do this create a config file config/local/TcpServer.json:

{
        "use_authentication": false
}

This is only necessary when running the ROS Bridge on another PC.

Topics

The following topics are enabled on the ROS bridge by default. You can add more by adapting the config file config/default/generic/Pilot_ROS_Bridge.json in pilot-ros-bridge.

Export

"export_map": [
        ["platform.odometry",                   "/odom"],
        ["sensors.laser_scan.lidar_1",          "/lidar_1/scan"],
        ["sensors.laser_scan.lidar_2",          "/lidar_2/scan"],
        ["sensors.filtered_scan.lidar_1",       "/lidar_1/scan_filtered"],
        ["sensors.filtered_scan.lidar_2",       "/lidar_2/scan_filtered"],
        ["kinematics.drive_state",              "/drives/joint_states"],
        ["mapping.grid_map",                    "/mapping/map"],
        ["mapping.grid_map_tile",               "/mapping/map_tile"],
        ["mapping.grid_map_tile_ref",           "/mapping/map_tile_ref"],
        ["navigation.grid_map",                 "/map"],
        ["navigation.grid_map_tile",            "/map_tile"],
        ["navigation.map_pose",                 "/map_pose"],
        ["navigation.map_particles",            "/particlecloud"],
        ["navigation.road_map",                 "/road_map"],
        ["navigation.global_path",              "/global_path"],
        ["navigation.local_path",               "/local_path"],
        ["navigation.local_cost_map",           "/local_cost_map"],
        ["navigation.local_cost_map_overlay",   "/local_cost_map_overlay"],
        ["navigation.global_cost_map",          "/global_cost_map"],
        ["navigation.global_cost_map_overlay",  "/global_cost_map_overlay"],
        ["local_planner.target_pose",           "/local_planner/target_pose"],
        ["local_planner.predicted_pose",        "/local_planner/predicted_pose"]
]

Import

"import_map": [
        [["/cmd_vel", "geometry_msgs/Twist"],           "platform.velocity_cmd"],
        [["/initialpose", "geometry_msgs/PoseWithCovarianceStamped"],   "navigation.initial_pose"],
        [["/move_base_simple/goal", "geometry_msgs/PoseStamped"],       "navigation.new_goal_pose"]
]