06/01/2022, 01:25 How to Build a Simulated Mobile Robot Base Using ROS – Automatic Addison

Automatic Addison
Build the Future

How to Build a Simulated Mobile

Robot Base Using ROS

In this tutorial, we will build a mobile robot base from scratch using ROS. In a future
post, I will add a robotic arm to this base so that we have a complete mobile
manipulator. By the end of this post, you will have a robot that looks like this:
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This tutorial would not have been possible without Ramkumar Gandhinathan and
Lentin Joseph’s awesome book ROS Robotics Projects Second Edition (Disclosure: As
an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases). I highly recommend it if
you want to learn ROS 1. Many of the files (URDF, configuration, and STL files),
come from their book’s public GitHub page.

Table of Contents 
Real-World Applications
Prerequisites
Install ROS Packages
Create a ROS Package
Create Folders
Build the Base of the Robot
Launch the Base of the Robot
References

Real-World Applications
This project has a number of real-world applications:

Indoor Delivery Robots

Order Fulfillment
Factories
Warehouses
Space Exploration
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Power Plants

Let’s get started!

Prerequisites
You have ROS running on Ubuntu Linux
I am using ROS Noetic.
I’m running my Ubuntu Linux inside a virtual machine on Windows 10. If you
have MacOS or Linux, that will work just fine. Just make sure you have ROS
installed.
Also, if you did the Hello World ROS project (to create a basic ROS Publisher and
Subscriber node), you will find this tutorial easier to follow.

Install ROS Packages

Let’s begin by installing some packages that we will need to accomplish our
objective.

sudo apt-get install ros-noetic-ros-control

sudo apt-get install ros-noetic-ros-controllers

sudo apt-get install ros-noetic-gazebo-ros-control

Create a ROS Package

Create a ROS package.

In a new terminal window, move to the src (source) folder of your workspace.

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cd ~/catkin_ws/src

Now create the package.

catkin_create_pkg mobile_manipulator_body std_msgs roscpp rospy

cd ~/catkin_ws/

catkin_make --only-pkg-with-deps mobile_manipulator_body

Create Folders

Open a new terminal window.

Move to your package.

roscd mobile_manipulator_body

Create these four folders.

mkdir config launch meshes urdf

Build the Base of the Robot

Now move to your meshes folder.

cd meshes

Go to this link, and download all the mesh files.

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Put the mesh files into your meshes folder inside your mobile_manipulator_body
package.

Check to see all the files are in there.

dir

Move to the urdf folder.

cd ..

cd urdf

Create a file named robot_base.urdf. In this file, we will define the four wheels of
the robot and the base (i.e. five different “links”. Links are the rigid parts of the
robot).

gedit robot_base.urdf

Copy this code for robot_base.urdf into that file.

Save and close the file.

Now, let’s launch RViz to see what our robot looks like so far.

roscd mobile_manipulator_body/urdf/

roslaunch urdf_tutorial display.launch model:=robot_base.urdf

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Move the wheels using the sliders.

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Press CTRL + C in all open terminal windows to close everything down.

Now, let’s set up the configuration parameters for the controllers.

Open a new terminal window.

Go to the config file of your package.

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roscd mobile_manipulator_body/config/

Now create a file named control.yaml.

gedit control.yaml

Add the control.yaml code inside there.

Save and close the file.

Launch the Base of the Robot

Now let’s launch the base of the robot.

Open a new terminal window, and go to the package.

roscd mobile_manipulator_body/launch/

Create a new launch file.

gedit base_gazebo_control.launch

Add the code for base_gazebo_control.launch inside there.

Save and close the file.

Now let’s launch the robot in Gazebo.

Open a new terminal window.

Move to your catkin workspace.

cd ~/catkin_ws/

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roslaunch mobile_manipulator_body base_gazebo_control.launch

Here is how the robot looks.

Here are the active ROS topics.

rostopic list

You can steer the robot by opening a new window and typing:

rosrun rqt_robot_steering rqt_robot_steering

You will need to change the topic inside the GUI to:

/robot_base_velocity_controller/cmd_vel

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To see the velocity messages, open a new window and type:

rostopic echo /robot_base_velocity_controller/cmd_vel

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References

ROS Robotics Projects Second Edition

automaticaddison / July 3, 2021 / Robotics / ground

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