ROS Resources: Documentation | Support | Discussion Forum | Index | Service Status | ros @ Robotics Stack Exchange
Ask Your Question

Revision history [back]

Yes, you can do this. The odometry message is basically the total translation and rotation of the robot as well as its current instantaneous velocities both linearly and rotationally.

You know the speed the wheels are rotating at, and I assume you either know or can determine the size of the wheels. Using this data and the kinematic equations of your robot setup you can calculate the robot's current velocities. You find the overall displacement by multiplying the current velocity by the time step and adding that to the total. Check out this tutorial on how to setup a basic odom publisher.