Wrap Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio Driver as a ROS node

asked 2012-12-03 05:02:14 -0500

vincent
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updated 2014-04-20 14:09:39 -0500

ngrennan
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We have a RobuCAR in our lab, whose driver was originally written under Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio(MRDS), provided by RoboSoft company. We want to switch the platform to ROS. But as the API of the controller board of RobuCAR is not given by Robosoft, we could not write the ROS driver for it. We are considering wrapping the driver under MRDS as a ROS node, but not sure if it is feasible or how to do it.

Does anyone have experience with this type of work? eg., low-level control with MRDS and high-level with ROS. Any suggestion is highly appreciated.

Vincent

Edited: I have to correct something that i said in the comment. Robosoft didn't provide ROS support for the RobuCAR. But they were very kind in providing the protocol for communication with the control board, for free, which is quite nice for us. So it is possible to develop a ROS driver for it now. Robosoft rocks! :)

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Do you have access to the MRDS "driver"?

SL Remy ( 2012-12-03 12:55:41 -0500 )edit

yes, we have the API of the MRDS driver

vincent ( 2012-12-03 14:58:45 -0500 )edit

can you share with me the manual containing the protocol for communication with the control board. I'm working on a similar project. thanks

Ilyas ( 2014-06-27 07:50:13 -0500 )edit

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answered 2012-12-03 16:39:36 -0500

dbworth
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Did you contact Robosoft? they might appreciate your help to integrate their product with ROS.

First you should familiarize yourself with ROS and ROS for Windows. You should read all the tutorials and learn how to compile C++ code into a ROS node that sends/receives data via ROS topics.

Then familiarize yourself with the code of the MRDS driver. You should make a simple driver to control a model in Robot Studio.

Then hopefully you can dump that code into your ROS node, setup the node CMakefile to point to the Microsoft dependencies. Maybe you can do everything in ROS for Windows, or maybe you can run ROS on a separate Linux PC and send your command messages on ROS topics via LAN connection to a Windows PC running ROS for Windows and Robot Studio!

There is lots to learn, so good luck....

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yes we did contact them, but it seemed that they only want to sell their service for now. They offer an upgrade to ROS interface which costs a lot since the support has expired and we have to send robuCAR back to them for that.

vincent ( 2012-12-04 06:22:29 -0500 )edit

Thanks for the suggestion. I've been using ROS for some time, but never tried ROS on windows. My concern is mostly on the "experimental" status of WinRos. I'll try that and see how it works. And it would be great to hear some more suggestions from you if you have used WinRos.

vincent ( 2012-12-04 06:31:18 -0500 )edit

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Wrap Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio Driver as a ROS node

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Wrap Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio Driver as a ROS node