ExploBench

ExploBench is a tesbed to test/simulate exploration algorithms on top on the ROS framework.

MORSE Simulation

The morse folder contains Beego files for MORSE simulation. MORSE is a generic simulator for academic robotics.

A video of MORSE simulation is available here.

Before installing the MORSE simulation, you need to install ROS on Ubuntu Linux. You can also run ROS and the simulation in a virtual machine like virtualBox, but the performance are quite low. You need to edit the morse/beego.py file in order to use wireframes for MORSE instead of 3D textures.

Basic install with a script

Execute the morse/misc/install.sh

Install by your own

On Ubuntu, you can install MORSE via this package:

sudo apt-get install python3-dev python3.2-dev libsdl1.2debian python3-yaml
sudo dpkg -i openrobots-morse_0.5_i386.deb
wget http://download.blender.org/release/Blender2.61/blender-2.61-linux-glibc27-i686.tar.bz2
tar jxf blender-2.61-linux-glibc27-i686.tar.bz2
export MORSE_BLENDER=$(pwd)/blender-2.61-linux-glibc27-i686/blender
export PYTHONPATH=$PYTHONPATH:/usr/local/lib/python3/dist-packages

TIP: if you want to make the export permanent, use:

echo "export MORSE_BLENDER=$(pwd)/blender-2.61-linux-glibc27-i686/blender" >> ~/.bashrc
echo "export PYTHONPATH=\$PYTHONPATH:/usr/local/lib/python3/dist-packages" >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

to check your installation, use:

morse check

see MORSE README

WARN: Patch ROS Python3

You might need to patch ROS (due to a regression in Python3 compatibility):

wget http://anr-proteus.github.com/slides/rospy3k.patch 
sudo patch -p0 < rospy3k.patch

TIP: if ROS is not in /opt/ros, patch as:

roscd common_msgs
wget http://anr-proteus.github.com/slides/rospy3k.patch -O - | patch -p5

Install ExploBench

git clone https://github.com/SergeStinckwich/ExploBench.git

Run the simulation

1. cd ExploBench/morse
2. run morse edit beego.py (cf. slides )
3. in a new terminal: cd ExploBench; source test.sh
4. press "P" key in Blender 3D View to launch the simulation
5. in a new terminal: cd ExploBench; source velexplo.sh
6. in order to view the sensors data, launch rviz: rosrun rviz rviz -d explore_beego/explore.vcg

If you want to list all the topics from this simulation

$ rostopic list -v

Published topics:
 * /beego/odometry [nav_msgs/Odometry] 1 publisher
 * /beego/camera [sensor_msgs/Image] 1 publisher
 * /rosout [rosgraph_msgs/Log] 1 publisher
 * /beego/scan [sensor_msgs/LaserScan] 1 publisher
 * /rosout_agg [rosgraph_msgs/Log] 1 publisher

Subscribed topics:
 * /beego/velocity [geometry_msgs/Twist] 1 subscriber
 * /rosout [rosgraph_msgs/Log] 1 subscriber