The robot moves too slowly during navigation

[sven10140]

Hi
How can I increase the robot's speed?
Thx, greets

[makers-pet]

Hi sven10140,

"robot's speed" - do you mean when driving manually (using teleop_keyboard) or navigating autonomously (using Nav2)?

If manually, run ros2 run kaiaai_teleop teleop_keyboard and press w repeatedly to increase the robot's linear speed.

Autonomous navigation - in this case the speed is set by the Nav2 local planner (not by teleop_keyboard). You'll want to edit config/navigation.yaml in the makerspet_mini package, under controller_server -> FollowPath (the DWB path planner):

    FollowPath:
      plugin: "dwb_core::DWBLocalPlanner"
      max_vel_x: 0.22        # top forward speed, m/s  -> raise this
      max_speed_xy: 0.22     # keep equal to max_vel_x
      max_vel_theta: 1.0     # top turning speed, rad/s -> raise for faster turns
      acc_lim_x: 2.5         # optional: higher = quicker to reach speed
      acc_lim_theta: 3.2     # optional: quicker turning acceleration

max_vel_x is the main one - it's the forward speed cap during navigation. Try bumping it from 0.22 to about 0.30 (and set max_speed_xy to the same value), then increase gradually. Note that going faster leaves the planner less time to react to obstacles and can make localization noisier, so raise it in small steps and test.

Don't exceed the robot's mechanical limit. From config/teleop_keyboard.yaml, the drivetrain tops out at:

    max_lin_vel: 0.4     # m/s  (200 RPM motor, derated 90%)
    max_ang_vel: 7.72    # rad/s

That file (teleop_keyboard.yaml) is also where the min/max speed limits for manual keyboard driving live, if you want to change those too. Again, don't exceed the default limit - it's there for good reasons.

To make the change take effect, edit the file inside the running makerspet container and restart the navigation launch. To make it survive a container restart, commit the container image afterward:

# for the Iron image:
docker container commit makerspet kaiaai/kaiaai:iron

If you are using the Jazzy image:

docker container commit makerspet kaiaai/kaiaai:jazzy

If you're already at the drivetrain's limit and want more physical top speed, things get complicated because both hardware and ROS2 configuration will have to be carefully reworked.

Ilia

[sven10140]

Thank you for the explanation.
Where exactly can I find this file
config/navigation.yaml ?

[makers-pet]

Inside the Docker container

cd /ros_ws/src/makerspet_mini/config/
ls navigation.yaml