Proto Robotics Project

A robotics research platform at TWU RRU (Trinity Western University's Robotics Research Unit).

Proto V2 (2024-09-09 to ???)

Proto V2 is currently in development. It's intended goal is to be the first autonomous delivery robot on campus.

Contributors

• Finian (Lughtigheid?)
• Noah ???
• Dominic ???
• Oliver (LinYun) Liu
• Jacobus Burger

Documentation

• The documentation can be found in Proto V2/Documentation, it's written and handled with Obsidian.md.

Proto V1 (2024-05-15 to 2024-08-31)

Proto V1 was a the pioneering robotics from scratch project. It was a simple teleoperation robot controlled with a web interface and simple BLDC motor controller board.

Contributors

• Josh Boelma
• Jacobus Burger
• Jun Park
• Oliver (LinYun) Liu

Documentation

Most of the Proto V1 Documentation was done with notion and is kept in the Proto V1 directory as a zip file.

Required External Repositries

RPLIDAR A1 https://index.ros.org/r/rplidar_ros/

• GitHub page Readme.md is the instruction for ROS and ROS2. Follow ros.org.

Lidar Odometry https://github.com/MAPIRlab/rf2o_laser_odometry

BNO055 (IMU) https://github.com/process1183/ros2_bno055

Required ROS2 packages

• nav2 https://docs.nav2.org/ and turtlebot3

  sudo apt install -y ros-humble-navigation2
  sudo apt install -y ros-humble-nav2-bringup
  sudo apt install -y ros-humble-turtlebot3*

How to install ros2 packages

• create workspace folder

  mkdir ros2_ws
  mkdir ros2_ws/src
  #copy folders of 
  cd ros2_ws
  colcon build 

• put below in the bottom of ~/.bashrc

    source [path_to]/ros2_ws/install/setup.bash
    export TURTLEBOT3_MODEL=waffle # if you are using turtlebot3 packages
  

ROS2 tips

- ROS2 humble Tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gg25GfA456o

• create workspace folder

  mkdir ros2_ws
  mkdir ros2_ws/src
  cd ros2_ws
  colcon build

• create package that is using python

  cd src
  ros2 pkg create airobot_controller --build-type ament_python --dependencies rclpy

• in .bashrc source setup.bash path

    source [path_to]/ros2_ws/install/setup.bash # make sure it is the right path
  

• when create new file

    put in setup.py >> items of 'consol_scripts'
        "name = pkgname.pyfile:main", 
  

  ex) portion of setup.py

  entry_points={
      'console_scripts': [
          'mapToOdomTF = odom.mapToOdomTF:main',
          'initialPoseSetter = odom.initialPoseSetter:main',
          'teleop_cmd_vel = odom.teleop_cmd_vel:main',
          'testOdom = odom.testOdom:main',
          'cmd_vel_controller = odom.cmd_vel_controller:main',
          'LaserToBase = odom.LaserToBase:main',
          'bno = odom.bno:main',
          'left_wheel = odom.leftWheel:main',
          'right_wheel = odom.rightWheel:main',
          'left_wheel2 = odom.leftWheel2:main',
          'right_wheel2 = odom.rightWheel2:main',
          'odom_publisher = odom.odomPublisher:main',
          'odom_publisher2 = odom.odomPublisher2:main',
          'teleopWheel = odom.teleopWheel:main',
          'icp = odom.icp:main',
      ],
  },
  
  
              

• at ros2_ws need it when ever new ros2 python file is created

  '--symlink-install' let your package auto-sync when edit the .py file

  colcon build --symlink-install 

• build specific package

  colcon build --symlink-install --packages-select <Package_Name>

• ERROR FIXING: if setup.py install is deprecated

  sudo apt install python3-pip
  pip3 list |grep setuptools
  #if the version is not 58.2.0
  pip3 install setuptools==58.2.0

• if you use another package in a package

  put <depend>packageName</depend> in package.xml

  ex)

  <depend>geometry_msgs</depend>

• ros2 investigate

  ros2 topic list
  ros2 topic info <topicName>
  ros2 interface show <Type from above>

• check frames

  ros2 run tf2_tools view_frames

• To add 'launch' dir (or any dir with different name)

  in package.xml

  <depend>launch</depend>

  <depend>launch_ros</depend>

  in setup.py

  import os
  from glob import glob 
  data_files=[
      ...
      (os.path.join('share', package_name, 'launch'), glob('launch/*.py')),
  ],

Run rviz2 with template

ros2 run rviz2 rviz2 -d <path to .rviz file>

RpLiDAR A1

ros2 launch rplidar_ros rplidar_a1_launch.py 

Cheak Connections between Frames

ros2 run tf2_tools view_frames

SLAM

ros2 launch odom slam_launch.py 

• To save the map from SLAM

    ros2 run nav2_map_server map_saver_cli -f ~/map
  

Nav2 Turtlebot3 simulation

• tutorial: https://roboticsbackend.com/ros2-nav2-tutorial/
• run each one in different terminal

  ros2 launch turtlebot3_gazebo turtlebot3_world.launch.py
  
  ros2 launch turtlebot3_navigation2 navigation2.launch.py use_sim_time:=True 
  
  ros2 run turtlebot3_teleop teleop_keyboard

Nav2 using turtlebot packages

• make sure turtlebot3, nav2, and custom packages in this repo is all installed

  ros2 launch odom nav2_launch.py 
  ros2 run odom cmd_vel_controller
  ros2 launch turtlebot3_navigation2 navigation2.launch.py use_sim_time:=False map:=[path_to]/hallway.yaml