gazebo autonomous simulation for Rover

A repo to manage the codebase for the testing of a rover in a simulated space. Clone this repo to src folder of your catkin workspace.

Environment and Dependencies:

Everything runs on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

• Install ROS Melodic: http://wiki.ros.org/melodic/Installation/Ubuntu
• Install catkin: $ sudo apt-get install ros-melodic-catkin
• Create a catkin workspace: http://wiki.ros.org/catkin/Tutorials/create_a_workspace
• If the ROS installation didn't install gazebo then follow: http://gazebosim.org/tutorials?tut=install_ubuntu&cat=install
• Install Gazebo_ros_pkgs:
  • $ sudo apt-get install ros-melodic-gazebo-ros-pkgs ros-melodic-gazebo-ros-control
  • $ sudo apt-get install ros-melodic-hector-gazebo-plugins
  • $ sudo apt-get install ros-melodic-rqt-robot-steering - pkg for steering rover via a gui
• Depends on messages defined in common repo https://github.com/novarover/common, please clone into same workspace.

Git Usage:

• Clone this repository into a subdirectory of the catkin workspace src folder.
• To develop a feature: branch from develop and make a pull request into develop when finished with changes.

Compiling:

• Use $ catkin build anywhere within workspace to build your packages. If you've previously used catkin_make then you may need to delete build and devel folders from your workspace.
• For ROS to see your packages you must use command $ source ~/catkin_ws/devel/setup.bash where catkin_ws is the path of your workspace folder. This can be done automatically with each new terminal by adding to .bashrc: $ echo "source ~/catkin_ws/devel/setup.bash" >> ~/.bashrc
• Gazebo searches for models using env variable GAZEBO_MODEL_PATH. Therefore, you need to add the full path of the models folder to the variable. $ echo "export GAZEBO_MODEL_PATH=/path/to/models/:$GAZEBO_MODEL_PATH" >> ~/.bashrc

Use:

• Run launch file $ roslaunch autonomous_sim basicSimulation.launch

• Can also run .world file directly after running $ roscore: $ rosrun gazebo_ros gazebo path/to/basicSimulation.world --verbose.

• Use rviz and rostopic to see the sensor data stream out.

• Skid Steer Drive Controller plugin is used for primitive driving of rover.

  • Can be driven graphically from launch file or using $ rosrun rqt_robot_steering rqt_robot_steering.
  • Can drive by publishing to /cmd_vel topic: $ rostopic pub /cmd_vel geometry_msgs/Twist '[<LINEAR_SPEED>, 0, 0]' '[0, 0, <ANGULAR_SPEED>]'
  • Can drive by publishing to /gazebo/driver/drive_cmd topic: $ rostopic pub /gazebo/driver/drive_cmd /gazebo/driver/drive_cmd autonomous_sim/DriveCmd '{rpm: <RPM>, steer_pct: <STEER_PCT>}
  • Also provides odometry data on topic /odom
  • Encoder data of wheels is published to /gazebo/encoder_data
  • Laser scan data is published to /scan

• Robot models provided are basic_rover and laser_rover. To launch the basic model in the closed_maze.world provided, use command:

  • roslaunch autonomous_sim closed_maze.launch

• The choice of robot model may be passed into the launch file as an argument of model, like so:

  • Launch 3D LIDAR rover in maze world: roslaunch autonomous_sim closed_maze.launch model:=laser_rover
  • Launch 2D LIDAR rover in empty world:roslaunch autonomous_sim empty_world.launch model:=2d_lidar_rover

• With the autonomous package from the https://github.com/novarover/autonomous repo (checkout to the correct branch), roslaunch autonomous simulation_bug2.launch to run simulation of bug 2 motion planning algorithm.