Question

I'm currently running the planar move plugin example found here on kinetic and Ubuntu 16.04, and encountered some issues. I put the provided code into a URDF file exactly as given and launched it both directly and through a .launch file. The box spawns into the Gazebo environment and sits still. I know that the collision frame is a cylinder underneath the visual box, but the plugin seemingly does nothing. There is no explanation whether or not I need to insert more lines into the code in order to get the desired motion and I cannot find any documentation on what is needed. Does anybody know what to do to get it moving?

Asked by atkinsc98 on 2019-05-29 19:52:08 UTC

Answer 1

It's a bit too late to answer this question, but i'll write it to be a guide for others who may have same problem.

Planar move plugin won't drive your robot until you command it to. if you type rostopic list in your terminal, you probably see a list of all topics that are running, one of which is /[robot_ns]/cmd_vel or whatever you assigned to be the velocity command topic to be (you can assign the name of velocity command topic to be whatever you want in URDF file, under corresponding gazebo/plugin tag). you can move your robot by manually publishing a twist type message through cmd_vel topic like this:

rostopic pub /[robot_ns]/cmd_vel geometry_msgs/Twist "linear:
  x: 0.1 
  y: 0.0
  z: 0.0
angular:
  x: 0.0
  y: 0.0
  z: 0.0"

remember to replace [robot_ns] with your robot namespace. it's just a basic and simple example of how planar move plugin works. you can connect the velocity command topic to any package that commands velocity with twist type messages.

Asked by SIA on 2021-11-13 00:51:02 UTC

Issues with Planar Move Plugin

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