Control Box ROS Bridge

This repository collects the necessary code to control a pneumatic-driven Continuum Soft Manipulators through a Control Box.

Hardware & Software Setup

To include the bridge in your ROS project, you need this steps.

1. Select the Control Box for your project. In our lab, we have 3 control boxes, with different numbers of valves.
2. Connect the control box with your device by USB. Be sure to have turned on the compressor and the power supply of the control box.
3. Clone this bridge in your workspace typing in the terminal

cd ~/<your_ws_path>/src
git clone git@github.com:Elektron97/controlbox_bridge.git

4. The build it

cd ..
catkin_make

5. Update the hardware parameters file for your specific control box. Usually, you can measure them by digital pressure gauge.

Usage

To launch the bridge node

roslaunch controlbox_bridge controlbox_bridge.launch

The node subscribe to the topic /pressures (Float32MultiArray msg type) and it will send by serial comm the command to the arduino inside the controlbox.

Contribution & Bug Report

If you encounter some bugs or you would like to contribute, you can open a new branch and implement your improvements.

# Creating your branch
git checkout -b <your_branch_name>

Moreover, you can also open an issue in this GitHub repository to report bug or ask help.