Spot Simulation in Gazebo

A ROS 2 Humble simulation package for the Boston Dynamics Spot robot using Ignition/Gazebo Sim (the successor to Gazebo Classic). This package provides:

• Full URDF/SDF robot description for simulation
• Integration with CHAMP quadruped controller
• Launch files for easy simulation setup
• Gazebo world configurations
• ROS 2/Gazebo bridge configuration for sensor and control interfaces

ROS graph

Note

1. All mesh and material files are referenced using Fuel URLs from fuel.gazebosim.org for convenience.
2. Currently all body camera and depth sensors are not used. Thus they are disabled to save computations.

Included packages

• champ - Core CHAMP quadruped controller integration package adapted for ROS 2 Humble and Spot
• champ_base - Base implementation of quadruped controller with gait generators and kinematics
• champ_config - Configuration package containing robot-specific parameters and settings for the CHAMP quadruped controller
• champ_msgs - Custom ROS 2 message definitions for quadruped control and state information
• spot_bringup - Launch files and configuration to start Spot simulation with all required nodes
• spot_description - URDF and SDF robot description files defining Spot's model for ROS 2 and Gazebo
• spot_gazebo - Ignition Gazebo simulation specific files including worlds and simulation plugins

  • Simple Tunnel

    

  • Edgar Mine

    

Install

Requirements

• Ubuntu 22.04
• ROS 2 humble
• Gazebo Fortress

Usage

1. Install dependencies

   cd ~/ros2_ws
   source /opt/ros/humble/setup.bash
   sudo rosdep init
   rosdep update
   rosdep install --from-paths src --ignore-src -r -i -y --rosdistro humble

2. Build the project

   colcon build --cmake-args -DBUILD_TESTING=ON

3. Source the workspace

   source ~/ros2_ws/install/setup.sh

4. Launch the simulation

   ros2 launch spot_bringup spot.gazebo.launch.py

Tasks Demonstration

SLAM

LiDAR Odometry

Object Detection, Segmentation and Pose Estimation

Navigation

1. Start the gazebo siimulation

ros2 launch spot_bringup spot.gazebo.launch.py rviz:=false

2. Use SLAM to build a map

ros2 launch spot_navigation online_async_launch.py

3. Once the map is built and saved

ros2 launch spot_navigation localization_launch.py map:=simple_tunnel.yaml use_sim_time:=true rviz:=true

NOTE currently the quality of AMCL is really bad so better find something better to use

TODO

1. Integrate a better controller like
   • https://github.com/ShuoYangRobotics/A1-QP-MPC-Controller
   • https://github.com/dfki-ric-underactuated-lab/dfki-quad
   • https://github.com/bostoncleek/quadruped_control

Acknowledgement

• champ ros2 branch.
• spot_config with some modification.
• spot_description for URDF.