gopher_ros_clearcore

This package provides control of a robot chest component using ROS. It initializes chest_control, chest_serial, and chest_logger ROS nodes and sets up various ROS topics and service providers for controlling the chest. It communicates with a Teknic ClearCore board over a serial interface to control the chest motion.

Dependencies

• ROS 1 (tested on Noetic)
• rospy
• geometry_msgs

Installation Steps

1. Create a ROS workspace:

   mkdir -p ~/catkin_ws/src
   cd ~/catkin_ws/src
   

2. Clone the package into the src directory:

   git clone https://github.com/<your-github-account>/gopher_ros_clearcore.git
   

3. Install dependencies:

   sudo apt-get update
   rosdep update
   rosdep install --from-paths . --ignore-src -y
   

4. Build the package:

   cd ~/catkin_ws/
   catkin_make
   

How to launch the nodes

Use the following command to launch the three nodes, chest_control, chest_serial, and chest_logger:

roslaunch gopher_ros_clearcore chest.launch

Examples of publishing to ROS topics

To send velocity commands to the chest component, you can publish a geometry_msgs/Twist message to the /z_chest_vel topic:

rostopic pub /z_chest_vel geometry_msgs/Twist "linear:
  x: 0.0
  y: 0.0
  z: 0.5
angular:
  x: 0.0
  y: 0.0
  z: 0.0" -r 10

To send position commands to the chest component, you can publish a gopher_ros_clearcore/Position message to the /z_chest_pos topic:

rostopic pub /z_chest_pos gopher_ros_clearcore/Position "position: 10.0
velocity: 1.0" -1

Examples of calling ROS services

To call a ROS service, you can use the rosservice command. For example, to stop the chest:

rosservice call /z_chest_stop "command: true"

To enable the chest drive motor:

rosservice call /z_chest_drive "command: true"

To enable the chest brake:

rosservice call /z_chest_brake "command: true"

To enable the chest debug mode:

rosservice call /z_chest_debug "command: true"

To enable the chest logger:

rosservice call /z_chest_logger "command: true"

To start the chest homing process:

rosservice call /z_chest_home "command: true"

To move the chest to an absolute position with a specified speed fraction:

rosservice call /z_chest_abspos "position: 100.0
velocity: 0.75"

To move the chest to a relative position with a specified speed fraction:

rosservice call /z_chest_relpos "position: -10.0
velocity: 0.5"

Examples of subscribing to the chest feedback

This part provides instructions on how to get feedback from the chest of a robot using the chest_logger ROS node. The code subscribes to the logged_info ROS topic, which provides the chest component's status information. The information is deserialized and published to various ROS topics.

To subscribe and echo the chest_position topic:

rostopic echo /chest_position

To subscribe and echo the chest_velocity topic:

rostopic echo /chest_velocity

To subscribe and echo the brake_status topic:

rostopic echo /brake_status

To subscribe and echo the motor_status topic:

rostopic echo /motor_status

To subscribe and echo the limits_status topic:

rostopic echo /limits_status