Reading Joystick Data in ROS

Installing Required Packages

First, install the necessary package:

sudo apt-get install ros-kinetic-joy

Checking Your Joystick

make sure your joystick is working:

sudo jstest /dev/input/js0

make sure your controller has correct permissions:

ls -l /dev/input/js0

The permission on the last column must be rw, if it “–” like this:

crw-rw-r--+ 1 root root 13, 0 May 18 12:12 /dev/input/js0

then correct the permission:

sudo chmod a+rw /dev/input/js0

Running the Code:

roscore
rosparam set joy_node/dev "/dev/input/js0"
rosrun joy joy_node

The joystick data are being published under /joy topic. To see the data:

rostopic echo joy