Robert

Robert mobile robot

Docker

For convenience it is recommended to use Docker containers. Please follow these steps to run Docker container on your machine.

1. Install Desktop OS Ubuntu Trusty or Xenial on your machine or in virtual machine
2. Install Docker-CE using these instructions
3. In order to executed Docker without sudo please execute

sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

4. Logout and login to your machine again :)
5. For development the following docker container was used.
6. To pull it please run

docker pull ucuapps/robert:latest

7. Use the following command to start Docker container

docker run -it --name robert_dev -p 8080:8080 -e DISPLAY -e LOCAL_USER_ID=$(id -u) -v /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix:rw ucuapps/robert:latest

8. Black window of Terminator UI console will appear after some time.
9. You can use it's features to split terminal window into smaller terminals and run few commands in parallel (Ctrl+Shift+E).
10. If you want to run real robot add user to dialout group and restart Docker container

sudo usermod -a -G dialout user

In order to relaunch docker container after you closed Terminator window or rebooted machine please run

docker start robert_dev

After some time Terminator window will reappear.

IDEs

In case if you want to run PyCharm in Docker container please run

pycharm

To launch QtCreator please run

qtcreator

For VSCode type

vscode

URDF and RViz

In order to debug URDF please launch

roslaunch robert_launch view_urdf.launch

To have a look on the state of the robot in RViz run

roslaunch robert_launch rviz.launch

Navigating on known map

Start office simulation

roslaunch robert_launch simulation.launch

Start UCU simulation

roslaunch robert_launch simulation.launch world_file:=ucu

Launch navigation stack (in order to launch second command split Terminator window by two using Ctrl-Shift-E. More information on Terminator shortcuts can be found here)

roslaunch robert_launch navigation.launch

Start navigation in UCU simulation

roslaunch robert_launch navigation.launch map_file:=ucu

In RViz which appear after some time select "2D Nav Goal" and robot will travel to it. Like it is shown in this video.

Building the map

Start simulation

roslaunch robert_launch simulation.launch

Launch gmapping node

roslaunch robert_launch gmapping.launch

Start Robot Steering RQT plugin to drive robot around

rosrun rqt_robot_steering rqt_robot_steering 

Save map to file

rosrun map_server map_saver -f <map_file_name>