How to run navigation stack on a tracked vehicle?

Hi! I have a tracked robot which I would like to turn into an autonomous one I'm thinking about adding GPS waypoint navigation. The first step for that I think is going to be implementing navigation stack. I'm fairly new to ROS, so I would appreciate each and any suggestion on what to use and how to use it.

I have IMU and GPS connected to the robot, and willing to buy additional sensors as well, if needed

Asked by Ubicray on 2017-07-03 02:38:48 UTC

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Answers

You can follow the usual tutorials on navigation. As mentioned in another answer, tracked vehicles have a poor odometry, but that can be overcome with alternative odometry packages such as hector_slam or laser_scan_matcher.

As you are outdoors, you can also use robot_localization to integrate your GPS with other localization sources.

Asked by Procópio on 2017-07-04 02:03:11 UTC

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Thanks for the input! What do you think, would GPS + IMU data be enough for localization or would I need visual odometry as well? (Asking because it's a big outdoor vehicle and visual odometry can be hard outdoors0

Asked by Ubicray on 2017-07-05 01:45:43 UTC

I do not think that would be enough. You could try laser odometry instead of visual odom. I also suggest that you use the encoders odometry, although noisy, in the robot_localization.

Asked by Procópio on 2017-07-13 03:29:14 UTC