Custom hardware board for four wheel steering robot

asked 2023-03-15 06:01:02 -0500

mzuzic gravatar image

HI everyone, I am in kind of difficult position here and really, don't know how to proceed further. My issue is following, I am facing custom made hardware which does not let me to control separately each wheel RPM and each servo motor for wheel, rather it has pre-made 'maneuver' types for specific actions and I can only set the distance the robot should move and at what angle, for example:

  • 'maneuver_forward' - I set distance 100 - Board sets servo values to 0 and it sets predefined RPM values for motors, and robot moves 100cm to front. The custom board already calculates the distance done by calculating wheel RPM-s and it stops after 100cm, same goes for reverse 'maneuver_reverse'
  • 'maneuver_rotate' - I set degrees from -360° to +360° and custom board rotates the servo motor to etc. +30° -30° degrees and it starts the wheel motors until Gyroscope (which is on the custom board) does not rotate for set degrees.
  • 'maneuver_left' - I set distance 100 - Board sets servo values of right servos to +90 and left servos to -90 and it starts the wheels, robot moves 100cm to left and stops. Same goes for 'maneuver_left' movement
  • 'maneuver_translation' - I set distance and degrees - Board rotates the wheels to given degresses and move the rover for given distance.

The communication with the custom board is done over UART (60bytes long messages - using registers etc.). I can read out all 4 RPM-s value and all 4 servo values alongside absolute course (gyroscope).

My issue is that I am literally stuck in implementing the any kind of ros_control for this board.

For now, I have tried 'faking' the data using diff_drive_controller, for example, my node that communicates with the custom board is listening to the cmd_vel topic and I have written simple logic for calling board maneuver-s. Something like this:

  • If cmd_vel velocity x is 0.3 <-> 0.4 and angular rotation is < 0.10 - maneuver_forward
  • If cmd_vel velocity x is < 0.3 and angular rotation is > 0.10 - maneuver_rotate

And similar, so basicly, I can control my robot using teleop_twist_keyboard and my logic, well, it kinda works for phisically controlling the robot.

Since now, I have been using Nav2 with Gazebo simulation and diff_drive_controller with my URDF robot model and I have configred the planning, obstacle avoidance, waypoint following, slam (lidar on robot) etc. etc. and now I need to actually move it to physical robot... and here is where I am stuck.

I have spent countles hours on going over documentations, searching for tutorials, etc. etc. and failed to find any clue on how should I proceed next.

I have also written custom /odom publisher for my physical rover which takes in Gyroscope, RPM values and I manually calculate rover position in x, y, z grid...

Now, here are my questions.

  1. Is it possible to use ROS2 and Nav2 with this kind of custom robot board?
  2. Would it be easier if the custom board was 'stupid' and offer ...
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