TurtlesimBuster

Brief Review

Note that the preffered language of this tutorial is using

A turtlesim program that bust new spawned turtles in the field.

This programs will help you to understand the basic ROS concepts like nodes, publishers, subscribers and services.

Turtlesim is a basic simulator where you can test the main concepts of ros like messages, topics, publisher, subscribers, services, actions and so on. Do not subestimate the simulator because a code that will run here could run on your robot (i.e. turtlebot) will minimal modifications, off course this simulator has its own limitations.

This applications function as follows.

• First, we spawn a 'leader' turtle. The box frame is (0,0) at the lower left and near (12,12) at the top right.
• The spawned turtle will land on a random location of this field.
• Next, the current turtle in the turtlesim simulator (named by default as turtle1) will chase the 'leader' turtle
• For chasing we use two PID controller
  • PID_distance will make control of the distance to achive
  • PID_angle will make control of the angle to achieve
• You can experiment feedback control by modifying those PID values
• When the turtle reaches a minimal 'gotcha' distance it will kill the current 'leader' turtle and will spawn a new 'leader' turtle
• The process repeats indefinitely.

If you want to run the project directly just go to the section , but you at least have to complete these prerequisites:

• Installed ROS
• Know how to create a workspace
• Have a minimal knowledge of ROS topics, messages, services, launch files

Quick reference that could help you in your application are this for implementing the PID controller if you do not remember how and this one from the IRIG group of UPC Spain.

The ROS Basics

In this section we will cover:

• Installation of Ubuntu
• Installation of ROS
• The catkin workspace
• Package creation
• Launching Turtlesim
• Making Launch files (the basics)

A. Ubuntu and ROS Installation

1. Install Ubuntu 20.04 or other using this guide.
2. Install ROS Noetic Ninjemys or your favorite ROS distribution by following the ROS installation wiki.
3. Insert this line at the end of the ~/.bashrc file for sourcing ROS, save and exit. source /opt/ros/noetic/setup.sh
4. Just this time, source ROS on your terminal by typing source ~/.bashrc and press enter.

B. Creating a workspace and a package

5. Create a ROS ros workspace and compile an empty package:

   cd ~
mkdir -p catkin_ws/src cd catkin_ws catkin_make

6. Open the .bashrc with nano

   nano ~/.bashrc

7. Insert this line at the end of the ~/.bashrc file for sourcing your workspace: source ~/catkin_ws/devel/setup.bash

8. Create a package and its dependencies (inside ~/catkin_ws/src folder)

catkin_create_pkg turtlesim_buster roscpp std_msgs

9. Ensure again you can compile the package doing catkin_make in the root folder catkin_ws.

   cd ~/catkin_ws catkin_make

C. Inspecting package.xml and CMakeLists.txt from your package folder

10. Inspect the file in ~/catkin_ws/src/turtlesim_buster/package.xml and look at the lines 51-57, those are build dependencies and excecution dependencies created by our previous command to run the package.

11. Inspect also the CMakeLists.txt inside ~/catkin_ws/src/turtlesm_buster/CMakeLists.txt and inspect the lines:

• 1-2: this is the cmake minimun version required by ROS and how is named the package to compile
• 10-12: whick packages catkin will require to run this package
• 104: some other packages that we will need to run this package, by default right now not necessary.
• 117-120: here will go the package includes first and the catkin include, by now we are ok.

D. Launching Turtlesim and creating a Launch File

We can then run turtlesim.

12. Open a 2nd Terminal and run:

    roscore

ROS needs roscore to run before all services, nodes and everything are trying to connect there.

13. Try to launch turtlesim by typing the next command:

    rosrun turtlesim turtlesim_node

rosrun as you see is to run a node. Think that a node is a program (basically). And the default command to run a node is rosrun <PACKAGE_NAME> <EXECUTABLE>.

13. Open a 3rt terminal window and run this command

    rosrun turtlesim turtle_teleop_key

14. Finally, in this terminal window try to manipulate the turtle with your keyboard arrows.

E. Creating Launch Files

As you see this is tedious to open terminals, launch the roscore, launch turtlesim and other nodes. Let's create a launch file:

15. Create a new folder named launch at the same level of your package, that is at ~/catkin_ws/src/turtlesim_buster/.

`mkdir launch`

16. Now name a launch file as you want. For simplicity I always make it similarly to the package name, at least the first part.

touch turtlesim_buster_launchexample.launch nano turtlesim_buster_launchexample.launch

17. Now write the following lines inside the launch file, save it and exit.

<launch>
    <node name="this_runs_turtlesim>" pkg="turtlesim" type="turtlesim_node" output="screen" />
    <node name="this_runs_teleop_key>" pkg="turtlesim" type="turtle_teleop_key" output="screen" />  
</launch>

18. Open a terminal, run the next command and click on this window to move the turtle again.

    roslaunch turtlesim_buster turtlesim_buster_launchexample.launch

Great no? Now with a single command we run roscore, launch turtlesim and also turtle_teleop_key all by the package name turtlesim_buster.

In resume the command for launching files is:

roslaunch <PACKAGE_NAME> <LAUNCH_FILE>

19. Good, now you now some of the mininimal basics of ROS. Let's move on other situations we can explore using turtlesim.

RQT Graph, ROS Topics, Publisher, Subscribers, Services and Messages

A. RQT Graph

A graph display the connection between nodes and how they communicate each other.

1. For running the graph, open a terminal and write the command rqt_graph.

In resume a node is a program like the turtlesim_node, the node can publish o subscribe to topics

As the image above lists, the turtlesim_node and teleop_key are nodes and their relationship is a topic.

B. ROS Topics

Topics, in a brief can be publishers or subscribers, these topics could give us information relative to control or just information of the node.

2. To list the topics use the command rostopic list.

Here is the topic turtle1/cmd_vel.

3. Explore a topic by running the command rostopic, there are a list of functions, but let's explore the topic for turtlesim only, the velocity command by rostopic echo /turtle1/cmd_vel.

4. If you move the turtle by the turtlesim_teleop_key node you will see the current output like:

   rostopic echo /turtle1/cmd_vel linear: x: 0.0 y: 0.0 z: 0.0 angular: x: 0.0 y: 0.0 z: 2.0

In resume to move the turtle we can give a linear velocity by x or an angular velocity by z. The linear velocity will push the robot back and forth (if negative) and the angular velocity will make the robot turn counter clockwise or clockwise (if negative).

5. Explore the topic /turtle1/pose with rostopic echo /turtle1/pose and move the robot. Do the same with the /turtle1/color_sensor topic.

C. Publishers and Subscribers

The topics could be published or subscribed, here the /turtle1/cmd_vel is both.

For the turtle_teleop_key is publishing the command and the turtlesim_node is subscribed to this topic.

Depending of how is constructed the application there are several topics that we could be explored.

6. Move the turtle by publishing the topic cmd_vel with the command:

   rostopic pub /turtle1/cmd_vel geometry_msgs/Twist "linear: x: 1.0 y: 0.0 z: 0.0 angular: x: 0.0 y: 0.0 z: 0.0"

7. The robot after running foward we could get back by moving to the previous position by the command

   rostopic pub /turtle1/cmd_vel geometry_msgs/Twist "linear: x: -1.0 y: 0.0 z: 0.0 angular: x: 0.0 y: 0.0 z: 0.0"

8. Repeat the same but for the angular velocity and make the robot turn by publishing to the same topic but the angular velocity.

E. Messages.

Messages are the structur of how are constructed the information to send to the nodes, each topic has an specific message.

9. For exploring more about the messages in the topic we could use the next command:

   rostopic info /turtle1/cmd_vel

10. The output will be something like:

    Type: geometry_msgs/Twist Publishers: /this_runs_teleop_key (http://robot:46149) Subscribers: /this_runs_turtlesim (http://robot:35053)

11. Here geometry_msgs/Twist is a type of message. Again, think that messages like structure of data in language programming like C/C++.

12. Let's explore the messages by looking at the folder:

    roscd geometry_msgs cd msg ls

13. As you see there is a list of default messages that we can use, and as expected, there is the Twist.msg

14. Open the twist message in nano by nano Twist.msg. You see that the message is composed by the type Vector3 and named linear and angular respectively.

15. Exit nano and explore then the Vector3.msg. Here we can see that the message is composed by:

`float64 x`
`float64 y`
`float64 z`

16. Now, as everything is comming to make sense, let's explore other utility commands that ROS has for messages:

`rosmsg list | grep turtle`

17. Here we can also see a usefull message named turtlesim/Pose:

`float32 x`
`float32 y`
`float32 theta`
`float32 linear_velocity`
`float32 angular_velocity`

18. If you remember, there was a topic named turtle1/pose. If you review that topic, you will see that there is a pose message as the previous commented lines.

19. Move the robot by the /turtle1/cmd_vel and in a separate window view the topic /turtle1/pose, you will see when moved, the output format of the data concords with the pose message.

E. Services and Actions

Services and Actions are other kind of 'functions' that we can use in ROS. The main difference of services and actions are that with services we have to wait until it finishes and with actions we can cancel at any time.

Actions are more complicated to rule so we will state by the moment with ROS services.

20. View the available commnds by rosservice and press enter.

21. List all services by rosservice list

22. Lets explore the /spawn and /kill services.

23. Create a turtle named new_turtle by typing the command:

    rosservice call /spawn "x: 3.0 y:3.0 theta: 0.0 name:'new_turtle'"

24. If everything goes well this will spawn a new turtle at the position (3,3).

25. Now kill the turtle by the service:

    rosservice call /kill "name:'new_turtle'"

26. You can continue exploring new horizons of ROS, but this will cover th basics and neccesary knowledge if you are a newbie for the application that we developed here.

ROS Dependencies in CMakeLists.txt and package.xml

1. Explore the dependencies of the CMakeLists.txt of this repository.

2. Here only concentrate on the MoveTurtle that corresponds to the MoveTurtle.cpp in the package.

3. As you see we need to specify for the package source MoveTurtle.cpp the name and its dependencies for compilation for cmake.

4. That's all, explore the packages.xml of this repo to see more information about the build dependencies.

Using TurtlesimBuster Package

• Create a ROS ros workspace and compile an empty package:

    cd ~
    mkdir -p catkin_ws/src
    cd catkin_ws
    catkin_make

• Open the .bashrc with nano:

    nano ~/.bashrc

• Insert this line at the end of the ~/.bashrc file for sourcing your workspace:

source ~/catkin_ws/devel/setup.bash

• Clone this repo in the ~/catkin_ws/src folder by typing:

    cd ~/catkin_ws/src
    git clone https://github.com/issaiass/TurtlesimBuster
    mv TurtlesimBuster turtlesim_buster
    rm -rf README.md
    rm -rf imgs

• Go to the root folder ~/catkin_ws and make the folder running catkin_make.
• Finally launch the application by:

    roslaunch turtlesim_buster turtlesim_buster.launch

• You must see that roscore executes, turtlesim_node executes and also a turtle is chasing a static turtle.

Results

You could see the results on this youtube video.

The video only shows the application running, not the explanation of the code.

Below a simple image of the application:

Video Explanation

I will try my best for making an explanatory video of the application as in this view.

Issues

Currently are no issues present.

Contributiong

Your contributions are always welcome! Please feel free to fork and modify the content but remember to finally do a pull request.

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