ME5493 Robotics @ The University of Texas at San Antonio
Module on Robot Operating System v1 (ROS) (link to this page: tiny.cc/pranavb_ros)
By Pranav Bhounsule (pranav.bhounsule@utsa.edu)
Read this before you start
Overview: This material is aimed to help people who want to learn the basics of ROS but have very limited knowledge of C++ or Ubuntu. A little bit of programming experiences (e.g., C, MATLAB, Python) would be helpful but not necessary.
How to use the material: Follow the lessons 1-7 then do the problems to learn about ROS. Then move onto 8-11 then do the related problem to learn about modeling and visualization of manipulators using ROS. The lesson plans require you to follow a set of instructions in the read_me file. The problem set tests you on the lesson plan. It is very important to do the problems to reinforce the lessons. You will learn best by coding rather than just reading the material.
What is needed: A windows/mac machine that has atleast 8 GB RAM. You will install Virtual Box and copy the disk image provided by ROS-Industrial to get Ubuntu with ROS-Kinetic preinstalled on it. You will work in C++ environment within Ubuntu. If you have Ubuntu then you only need to install ROS-kinetic (see Jason O Kane's book, Chapter 1, below for instructions).
Useful linux commands
Part 1: Introduction
Jason OKane's book, with comments to help with coding
- ROS setup
- OKane Chapter 2: Basic ROS commands, nodes, package,
messages, and topics
- Setting catkin workspace
- Hello World in ROS
- Publisher and Subscriber
- Parameters
- Services
Part 2: Modeling
- Learning urdf
- Simple urdf. Learning to use xacro. Planar double pendulum model
- Simple urdf with state publisher
- Simple urdf with tf.
Problems based on Modeling based on 8-11 Modeling
Resources
Want more? I recommend going through ROS Industrial training (link below).
- SwRI ROS Industrial Training Material (free), https://github.com/ros-industrial/industrial_training/wiki
- Jason O'Kane's Gentle Introduction to ROS (free ebook) https://www.cse.sc.edu/~jokane/agitr/
- ROS URDF tutorials (free), http://wiki.ros.org/urdf/Tutorials
- ROS tutorial by Clearpath Robotics (free), http://www.clearpathrobotics.com/assets/guides/ros/
Acknowledgements
- Automation and Data Systems Division at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI)
for their ROS-Industrial training material.
- Austin Deric, Jeremy Zoss, Matt Robinson from SwRI for providing hands-on ROS-Industrial training.
- Paul Evans from SwRI and Shaun Edwards from PlusONE Robotics for
their encouragement to teach ROS as part of the Robotics curriculum at
UTSA
- Jason O'Kane Professor from U of South Carolina for his ROS book, which he makes available free of charge.
- Geoffrey Chiou, Graduate Student Mechanical Engineering, UTSA for help with the tf package.
Dec 3, 2017, Part 2: Modeling streamlined 8, 9, 10, and 11.
Nov 26, 2017: Part 1: Introduction, Streamlined examples 05. pub_sub2, 06. parameters, 07.services and updated OKane pdf noted