Robot Operating System

Tuesday, December 5, 2017

Bahria University Islamabad
Ammar Ajmal & Tahir Mehmood
Introduction to ROS
A meta-operating system for robots
Bridging the gap from
simple to complex robotics
What is ROS?
• A “Meta” Operating System.
• Open source
• Runs in Linux (esp. Ubuntu)
• Ongoing Windows implementation
• Agent based (nodes)
• Message passing
• Publish
• Subscribe
• Services via remote invocation
• Supports numerous programming languages (C++, Python, Lisp, Java)
What is ROS?
• Low level device abstraction Application
• Joystick building
• GPS blocks
• Camera
• Controllers ROS
• Laser Scanners
• …
System
• Application building blocks software
• Coordinate system transforms
• Visualization tools
• Debugging tools
• Robust navigation stack (SLAM with loop closure)
• Arm path planning
• Object recognition
• ...
What is ROS?
• Software management (compiling, packaging)
• Remote communication and control
What is ROS?
• Founded by Willow Garage
• Exponential adoption
• Countless commercial, hobby, and academic robots use ROS
(http://wiki.ros.org/Robots)
What is ROS?
• Software basis of Willow Labs’s PR2
ROS Philosophical goals
• “Hardware agnosticism”
• Peer to peer
• Tools based software design
• Multiple language support (C++/Java/Python)
• Lightweight: runs only at the edge of your modules
• Free
• Open source
• Suitable for large scale research and industry
ROS software development
Conceptual levels of design
(A) ROS Community: ROS Distributions, Repositories

Carnegie Mellon

Node 4 Node 5 (B) Computation Graph: Peer-to-Peer Network of

ROS nodes (processes).
Node 1 Node 2:
Laser Scanning Map Building

Node 3:
Planning
Node7
Node 6

(C) File-system level: ROS Tools for managing source code,

build instructions, and message definitions. 14
Tools-based software design
Tools for:

• Building ROS nodes

• Running ROS nodes
• Viewing network topology
• Monitoring network traffic

Many cooperating processes, instead of a single monolithic program.

Multiple language support
• ROS is implemented
natively in each C++ Node : Python Node:
Map Building Laser Scanner
language.
• Quickly define
messages in language-
independent format. Topic:
“LaserData”
File-system level
File: PointCloud.msg
Header header
Points32[] pointsXYZ
int32 numPoints
Lightweight
• Encourages standalone libraries with no ROS dependencies:
Don’t put ROS dependencies in the core of your algorithm!

• Use ROS only at the edges of your interconnected software modules: Downstream/Upstream
interface

• ROS re-uses code from a variety of projects:

ROS Community
• OpenCV : Computer Vision Library

• Point Cloud Library (PCL) : 3D Data Processing

• OpenRAVE : Motion Planning Carnegie

Mellon
Peer to Peer Messaging

• No Central Server through which all messages are routed.

• “Master” service run on 1 machine for name registration +
lookup
• Messaging Types:
• Topics : Asynchronous data streaming
• Parameter Server Computation Graph
Peer to Peer Messaging

• Master: Lookup information, think DNS

roscore command  starts master, parameter server, logging
• Publish: Will not block until receipt, messages get queued.
• Delivery Guarantees: Specify a queue size for publishers: If publishing too
quickly, will buffer a maximum of X messages before throwing away old
ones
Computation Graph
• Transport Mechanism: TCPROS, uses TCP/IP
• Bandwidth: Consider where your data’s going, and how
Free & Open Source
• BSD License : Can develop commercial applications
• Drivers (Kinect and others)
• Perception, Planning, Control libraries
• MIT ROS Packages : Kinect Demos, etc
• Interfaces to other libraries: OpenCV, etc
Some Basic Commands
• Ls (lists all directories and files in current folder)
• Cd (change directory to a path specified)
• Mkdir (makes a folder in the current directory)
• Cd (will go back to home directory)
• Cd .. (one folder back)
Master
• Roscore
• It starts
• a ROS master
• a ROS Para meter Server
• a rosout logging node
• All nodes communicate with master
• If you use roslaunch it will automatically run roscore if the instance is
not running
Parameter Server
• Shared multivariable dictionary
• Accessible via a network
• Nodes uses this to save and retrieve data at runtime
• Data types stored in Parameter Server are
• 32 bit Integers
• Boolean
• String
• Doubles
• ISO 8601 dates
• Lists
• Base 64 encoded binary data
Parameter Server Cont.
• Rosparam is a tool to view and analyze Parameter Server
• Rosparam list
• Rosparam info
• Rosparam set, get
• Rosparam delete
• Rosparam dump
• Rosparam load
/rosout
• Logging node
• Log Messages
• Similar to STD::cout
• For console output
• Rqt_console for visualization
A Simple Program
• Starting turtlesim In three separate terminals, execute these three
commands:
• Roscore
• rosrun turtlesim turtlesim_node
• rosrun turtlesim turtle_teleop_key
• Rospack list (Packages installed)
• Rospack find pkg_name
ROS Nodes
• A running instance of a ROS program is called a node
• Running instance is most important. We can not run different copies of same node Why!
• How to start a node……..
• Nodes are loosely coupled
• Rosrun pkg_name executable_name
• Some useful commands
• Ronode list
• Rosnode info
• Rosnode kill
• rosrun package_name executable_name __name:=node_name
ROS Messages
• Data published by ROS nodes is called a Message
• A lot of Standard message types i.e. string, int, bool etc
• Message desprictions are stored in
my_package/msg/MyMessageType.msg
• 2 parts of .msg file
a. Field
This is the Data that is sent inside a message
b. Constant
Constatns define useful values that are used to interpret those fields
ROSMSG cont.
• Message types uses package resource names like
geometry_msgs/msg/twist.msg is commonly referred to as
geometry_msgs/Twist
• Rosmsg show (-r for raw message definition) (-b for a bag file)
• Rosmsg list
• rostopic type /topic_name | rosmsg show (this will show type
information about a topic )
• Rosmsg package (All messages in a package) (-s for single line display)
ROS Topics
• Each ROS message is published under a subject called Topic
• A Node publishes messages depending upon a topic and another node subscribe to this
topic
• If multiple nodes are publishing on a single topic than a node who needs info on that
specific topic to this single topic will subscribe to all these nodes WHY!
• rostopic list
• rostpoic info
• Rostopic echo
• Rostpoic bw, hz
• rostopic pub -r rate-in-hz topic-name message-type message-content
rostopic pub -r 1 /turtle1/cmd_vel geometry_msgs/Twist ’[0, 0, 0]’ ’[0, 0, 1]’
Same Topic Multiple Nodes
• In three separate terminals type these four commands
• rosrun turtlesim turtlesim_node __name:=A
• rosrun turtlesim turtlesim_node __name:=B
• rosrun turtlesim turtle_teleop_key __name:=C
• rosrun turtlesim turtle_teleop_key __name:=D
Creating Packages in ROS
• Workspace
• Ros build
• Catkin
• mkdir -p caktin_ws/src
• cd caktin_ws/src/
• catkin_init_workspace
• catkin_create_pkg package_name
• It will two files
• Package.xml
• Cmake.txt
 A minimal Example

• Hello World Program ! (.cpp file)

• Editing Manifest (Package.xml)
• Declaring an Executable (Cmake.txt)
.CPP File

// This is a ROS version of the standard " hello , world"

2 // program .
34
// This header defines the standard ROS c l a s s e s .
5 #include <ros / ros . h>
67
int main( int argc , char ∗∗ argv ) {
8 // I n i t i a l i z e the ROS system .
9 ros : : i n i t ( argc , argv , " hello_ros ") ;
10
11 // Establish t h i s program as a ROS node .
12 ros : : NodeHandle nh ;
13
14 // Send some output as a log message .
15 ROS_INFO_STREAM("Hello , ␣ROS! ") ;
16 }
Package.xml
<?xml version ="1.0"?>
<package>
<name>Package name </name>
<version >0.0.1</ version>
<description >
Examples
</description >
<maintainer email=“someone@something.com">
Name
</maintainer>
<license >TODO</license >
<buildtool_depend>catkin </buildtool_depend>
<build_depend>geometry_msgs</build_depend>
<run_depend>geometry_msgs</run_depend>
<build_depend>turtlesim </build_depend>
<run_depend>turtlesim </run_depend>
</package>
 Cmake.txt
• To list dependencies, edit the CMakeLists.txt in your package
directory. The default version of this file has this line:
find_package(catkin REQUIRED)
Dependencies on other catkin packages can be added in a
COMPONENTS section on this line:
find_package(catkin REQUIRED COMPONENTS package-names)
find_package(catkin REQUIRED COMPONENTS roscpp)
We should also list dependencies in the package manifest
(package.xml), using the build_depend and run_depend elements:
<build_depend>package-name</build_depend>
<run_depend>package-name</run_depend>
<build_depend>roscpp</build_depend>
<run_depend>roscpp</run_depend>
• Catkin_make
ROS Debugging
• Shutdown “Object” node  re-compile  restart : won’t disturb system

• Logging (VIDEO)

Kinect Driver Laser Scanner

Object
Recognition

Logger

• Playback (VIDEO)

Object
Logger Playback
Recognition 39
Useful ROS Debugging Tools
• Rqt_graph : This will show a graph showing all of the nodes with
their subscriptions and publications
• Rqt_plot : Plot data from one or more ROS topic fields using
matplotlib.
rqt_plot /turtle1/pose/x,/turtle1/pose/y  graph data from 2 topics in 1
plot
Useful ROS Debugging Tools
Rqt_graph
ROS Bag
• Record and playback data after or during a simulation
• Rqt_bag
• rosbag record -O xyz.bag topic_names
• Rosbag record –a
• Rosbag info
• Rosbag play
• Rosbag check
ROS Visualization
Visualize:

• Sensor data
• Robot joint states
• Coordinate frames
• Maps being built
• Debugging 3D markers

VIDEO
ROS Visualization Cont.
• Rviz
• Rosrun rviz rviz
• Add frames
• Fixed frames
• Refernce frames
• Fixed frame is dynamic ?
• 3D view
• Types of camera
Packages
• Perception

• Point Cloud Library (PCL)

• OpenCV

• Kinect/OpenNI
ROS Resources
• http://www.ros.org
• http://wiki.ros.org
• http://answers.ros.org

• ROS Cheatsheet:
http://www.tedusar.eu/files/summerschool2013/ROScheatsheet.pdf
Thank you!