Humanoid Robot Wrestling Controller Example

Alice ROS 2 controller

Minimalist ROS 2 package controller example for the Humanoid Robot Wrestling Competition. This basic package control motors using the Webots API provided by the webots_ros2_driver package. An example /IMU topic has been implemented in webots_controller.urdf following this guide.

The Docker image used in the competition is a lightweight iron image that does not have colcon installed so we pre-build the package using the build_controller.sh script.

Here is the nao_controller.py file using Webots' Robot API:

import rclpy

# This is a workaround so that Webots' Python controller classes can be used
# in this case, we need it to import the Motion class
import os
from ament_index_python.packages import get_package_prefix
os.environ['WEBOTS_HOME'] = get_package_prefix('webots_ros2_driver')
from controller import Motion


class NaoDriver:
    def init(self, webots_node, properties):
        # we play on loop the HandWave motion
        self.handWave = Motion('../motions/HandWave.motion')
        self.handWave.setLoop(True)

        rclpy.init(args=None)
        self.__node = rclpy.create_node('nao_driver')

    def step(self):
        # Mandatory function to go to the next simulation step
        rclpy.spin_once(self.__node, timeout_sec=0)
        self.handWave.play()

And here is the ROS 2 launch file using webots_ros2_driver:

import os
from launch import LaunchDescription
from ament_index_python.packages import get_package_share_directory
from webots_ros2_driver.webots_controller import WebotsController

def generate_launch_description():
    package_dir = get_package_share_directory('participant')
    controller_url = os.environ.get('WEBOTS_CONTROLLER_URL')

    my_robot_driver = WebotsController(
        robot_name=controller_url,
        parameters=[
            {'robot_description': os.path.join(package_dir, 'resource', 'webots_controller.urdf')},
        ]
    )

    return LaunchDescription([
        my_robot_driver,
    ])

Here is the Dockerfile used by the controller:

# We use the eprosima/vulcanexus:iron-simulation image because it is light
# It has ROS2 and webots_ros2 installed
FROM eprosima/vulcanexus:iron-simulation-3.0.0

WORKDIR /usr/local/webots-project/controllers/participant

# Copies all the files of the controllers folder into the docker container
RUN mkdir -p /usr/local/webots-project/controllers
COPY . /usr/local/webots-project/controllers

# The eprosima/vulcanexus:iron-simulation Docker image does not have colcon installed
# We install it and build the participant package
RUN apt-get update && \
    apt-get install -y python3-colcon-common-extensions && \
    rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/* && \
    colcon build

# Environment variable needed to connect to Webots instance
ARG WEBOTS_CONTROLLER_URL
ENV WEBOTS_CONTROLLER_URL=${WEBOTS_CONTROLLER_URL}
ENV USER=root

# Source the ROS iron setup file and run the participant package
CMD . /opt/ros/iron/setup.sh && . /usr/local/webots-project/controllers/participant/install/setup.sh && ros2 launch participant robot_launch.py

Bob is a more advanced ROS 2 robot controller able to win against Alice.