Racing Sparrow 750 Robot Model

A robot model based on designer Bryn Heveldt's Racing Sparrow 750 yacht http://www.racingsparrow.co.nz/.

Overview

These packages contain a robot model based upon the Racing Sparrow 750 model yacht. They include a robot model that may be simulated in Gazebo using the plugins from the asv_sim and asv_wave_sim projects. The model has been scaled by a factor of 3.2 to have a simulated LOA of approx. 2.4m.

This repository is a fork of Rhys Mainwaring's original Racing Sparrow 750 simulation, found here. It is being modified to support the Green Energy Ship project, adding Gazebo plugins to simulate a hydrokinetic turbine and additional control logic to support mission-level simulation.

Dependencies

You will need a working installation of Gazebo Garden in order to use this package. There is no dependency on ROS. The original version of this project archived in the branch gazebo11 depends on ROS Melodic.

The model uses plugins from the marine simulation libraries asv_sim and asv_wave_sim, and is controlled using ArduPilot which requires the ardupilot_gazebo plugin.

You will need a working installation of ArduPilot on your system to control the sailboat.

Installation

Create and configure a colcon workspace, clone and build the repo:

mkdir -p ~/gz_ws/src

# Install repo dependencies
sudo apt update
sudo apt install libgz-sim7-dev rapidjson-dev libcgal-dev libfftw3-dev

# Clone dependencies
cd ~/gz_ws/src
git clone https://github.com/srmainwaring/asv_sim.git
git clone https://github.com/srmainwaring/asv_wave_sim.git
git clone https://github.com/ArduPilot/ardupilot_gazebo.git

# Clone this repo
git clone https://github.com/j-herman/rs750.git

# Build
cd ~/gz_ws
colcon build --symlink-install --merge-install --cmake-args \
-DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo \
-DBUILD_TESTING=ON \
-DCMAKE_CXX_STANDARD=17

# Build the ArduPilot plugin
cd ~/gz_ws/ardupilot_gazebo
mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..
make

# Source the workspace
cd ~/gz_ws
source install/setup.bash

# From your root workspace directory, add resources to the path
export GZ_SIM_RESOURCE_PATH=$GZ_SIM_RESOURCE_PATH:\
$(pwd)/src/rs750/rs750_gazebo/models:\
$(pwd)/src/rs750/rs750_gazebo/worlds:\
$(pwd)/src/asv_wave_sim/gz-waves-models/models:\
$(pwd)/src/asv_wave_sim/gz-waves-models/world_models:\
$(pwd)/src/asv_wave_sim/gz-waves-models/worlds:\
$(pwd)/src/ardupilot_gazebo/models:\
$(pwd)/src/ardupilot_gazebo/worlds

# Add libraries to the plugin path
export GZ_SIM_SYSTEM_PLUGIN_PATH=$GZ_SIM_SYSTEM_PLUGIN_PATH:\
$(pwd)/install/lib:\
$(pwd)/src/ardupilot_gazebo/build

# Check the Gazebo environment variables
printenv | grep GZ

Usage

Method 1: Control RS750 with ArduPilot

Run Gazebo

gz sim -v4 -r sailing_course_ges.sdf

Run ArduPilot SITL

sim_vehicle.py -D -v Rover -f rover --model JSON --add-param-file=~/gz_ws/src/rs750/rs750_gazebo/config/rs750.param --console

Method 2: Control RS750 with ROS2

ros2 launch rs750_ros rs750.launch.py

Sails will autotrim. To steer, publish to the /cmd_vel topic. Only the angular z component will affect the RS750's motion through the rudder joint position controller. Example: ros2 topic pub /cmd_vel geometry_msgs/msg/Twist "{linear: {x: 0.0, y: 0.0, z: 0.0}, angular: {x: 0.0, y: 0.0, z: -1.0}}"

Usage notes

To pause charging from the command line:

gz topic -t "/ges_connect_topic" -m gz.msgs.Boolean -p "data: true"

To manually adjust the axial induction factor from the command line:

gz topic -t "/ges/zeta" -m gz.msgs.Float -p "data: 0.6"

License

This is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This software is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

Acknowledgments

The Racing Sparrow 750 was designed by Bryn Heveldt and is used here with his kind permission. The model plans and original 3D CAD files are available at: Racing Sparrow Model RC Yachts.