Help programming a simulation in stageros.

asked 2011-10-13 01:17:06 -0500

jlo
385 ●20 ●20 ●38

Hi, I want to program a simulation with stage, where I'd like a robot to move forward till he detects an obstacle, and then, turn until he can continue forward. For that I know I have to subscribe to scan topic and to publish to cmd_vel to make the robot move (thanks, Martin Günther!). But I don't know how to interact with stage itself. I think I could manage to write the subscribe and publish algorithms with what I learnt from the publisher's and subscriber's tutorials, but once that is done, I'm at a loss as to how execute the simulation. I read some of this link, but I'm still really lost. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

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answered 2011-10-13 03:52:27 -0500

roehling
1951 ●25 ●28 ●43 http://www.fkie.fraunhofer.de/

updated 2011-10-13 03:53:50 -0500

You will need a so-called world file which contains a description of the virtual environment and the characteristics of your simulated robot. The stage package contains a suitable demo world file. You must start Stage with the world file as argument, e.g.

rosrun stage stageros `rospack find stage`/world/willow-erratic.world

Now you can receive on the /base_scan topic and publish to the /cmd_vel topic with your own program.

If you want to create your own world file, you need a position and laser model for your robot and a suitable floor plan (usually a bitmap) that encodes the obstacles. For the exact syntax, you can read the manual or look at the existing world files.

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@Röhling : Nice command for stage, I was using ./stageros from the stage executables - but this is much better ! :-)

Arkapravo ( 2011-10-29 20:07:20 -0500 )edit

Hi, I stage is not running on my machine , I am using Ubuntu 12.04 and Hydro, when I entered above command it shows this error:

[rosrun] Couldn't find executable named stageros below /opt/ros/hydro/share/stage

tonyParker ( 2014-09-11 18:34:55 -0500 )edit

ROS Hydro use stage 4.1.1. for this version try

rosrun stage_ros stageros ..............

tonyParker ( 2014-09-19 08:23:08 -0500 )edit

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answered 2011-10-13 22:10:40 -0500

jlo
385 ●20 ●20 ●38

Thanks! I managed to get inside it and now I'm trying to publish manually info into cmd_vel. I checked with rosmsg show what type it is and I get it's a vector:

alonsoj1@aut-228:~/ros_workspace$ rosmsg show geometry_msgs/Twist
geometry_msgs/Vector3 linear
  float64 x
  float64 y
  float64 z
geometry_msgs/Vector3 angular
  float64 x
  float64 y
  float64 z

I try the following ways:

alonsoj1@aut-228:~/ros_workspace$ rostopic pub /cmd_vel geometry_msgs/Twist -- 2,3,1 0,0,0
ERROR: No key named [2,3,1]
Args are: [linear.x linear.y linear.z angular.x angular.y angular.z]

Then like this:

2.0 3.0 1.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
2 3 1 0 0 0
[2 3 1] [0 0 0]

But none of them work, any ideas?

Thanks!

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Found it in YAML manual: rostopic pub /cmd_vel geometry_msgs/Twist -r 1 '[1, 1, 0]' '[2, 0, 0]' Now... what type of coordinates are used for angle? Like here in the first case http://smerobot-tools.prospektiv.de/robotic/eng/robot_coordinates.html ? I can't seem to figure them out (angles, most of al

jlo ( 2011-10-14 00:42:32 -0500 )edit

rostopic pub /cmd_vel geometry_msgs/Twist '{linear: {x: 1, y: 0, z: 0}, angular: {x: 0, y: 0, z: 1.0}}' see also http://www.ros.org/wiki/ROS/YAMLCommandLine

Lorenz ( 2011-10-14 00:42:44 -0500 )edit

The twist message doesn't specify any coordinates. It specifies linear and angular velocities. Information about the units used in ROS can be found here: http://www.ros.org/reps/rep-0103.html. Linear velocities are specified in m/sec and angular velocities in rad/sec.

Lorenz ( 2011-10-14 00:49:52 -0500 )edit

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answered 2011-10-16 21:38:30 -0500

jlo
385 ●20 ●20 ●38

Hi, So... if I understood correctly, I could be able to move the robot everywhere without using the angular velocity parameter, right? I have tried and I can't manage to get it right: I can move the robot left and right (as seen in the screenshot) with the following commands:

rostopic pub /cmd_vel geometry_msgs/Twist -r 1 '[10, 0, 0]' '[0, 0, 0]'

and back to the inverted direction (right):

rostopic pub /cmd_vel geometry_msgs/Twist -r 1 '[-10, 0, 0]' '[0, 0, 0]'

I tried playing with the rest of coordinates (using y or z, but they didn't produce any visible result). I also tried to use the angular velocity parameter by themselves, but I couldn't manage to make the robot move.

image description

Any suggestions would be appreciated, thanks :)!

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[SOLVED] Reading teleop_base_keyboard.cpp I found out that the only coordinates that matter are X of linear and Z of angular speed. With that, I managed to move the robot. An example, to make it move in a circle: rostopic pub /cmd_vel geometry_msgs/Twist -r 10000 '[10, 0, 0]' '[0, 0, 5]'

jlo ( 2011-10-17 00:27:16 -0500 )edit

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answered 2011-10-17 01:06:17 -0500

Arkapravo

1098 ●46 ●63 ●71 http://mobotica.blogspot.in/

updated 2011-10-25 01:29:03 -0500

I would suggest a slight modification to Röhling's approach.

You can locate willow-erratic.world file at /opt/ros/diamondback/stacks/simulator_stage/stage/world. Modify that world file slightly, towards the end of the file add ctrl "wander" as shown;

# throw in a robot
erratic( pose [ -11.277 23.266 0 180.000 ] name "era" color "blue" ctrl "wander")
block( pose [ -13.924 25.020 0 180.000 ] color "red")

and now if you try the command

rosrun stage stageros `rospack find stage`/world/willow-erratic.world

you should see the erratic robot move around in a 'wander' mode - moving around randomly avoiding obstacles.

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Do you happen to know where the code for that 'wander' mode is? Where can it be read?

jlo ( 2011-10-17 01:38:05 -0500 )edit

@jlo : it is not a code - it is integrated into Stage - if you want the 'wander' code which has been integrated into it then download Stage (ver 3.2.2) (http://sourceforge.net/projects/playerstage/files/Stage/) and check out the file Stage-3.2.2-Source/examples/ctrl/wander.cc

Arkapravo ( 2011-10-17 02:04:32 -0500 )edit

@jlo : http://www.ros.org/wiki/stage/Tutorials/IntroductiontoStageControllers

Arkapravo ( 2011-10-29 21:49:22 -0500 )edit

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answered 2011-10-17 01:43:02 -0500

jlo
385 ●20 ●20 ●38

Any ideas towards how can I read the laser info to check if the robot has an obstacle in front of it or not? I tried with this

alonsoj1@aut-228:~$ rosmsg show sensor_msgs/LaserScan
Header header
  uint32 seq
  time stamp
  string frame_id
float32 angle_min
float32 angle_max
float32 angle_increment
float32 time_increment
float32 scan_time
float32 range_min
float32 range_max
float32[] ranges
float32[] intensities

And I think the best way would be to establish a threshold for the range of 'intensities'. How can I stream the values of that parameter in a terminal to establish that range?

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Why not use the ranges array, which contains the measured distances to the obstacles?

roehling ( 2011-10-17 01:49:44 -0500 )edit

How can I visualize the ranges array?

jlo ( 2011-10-17 21:02:07 -0500 )edit

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Help programming a simulation in stageros.

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