teleop_base deprecated, need generic teleop package

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Hi!

I've recently announced a teleop stack which allows generic tele-operation "source" devices (such as keyboards, joysticks, etc.) to be used interchangeably to control generic tele-operation "sink" devices (such as robot bases, pan-tilt units, robot arms, etc.).

The code can be downloaded here: https://github.com/skynetish/generic_teleop

More information can be found here: https://github.com/skynetish/generic_teleop/wiki

Comments and feedback welcome!

Best, Kevin

So as far as I know, there's no real official, universal teleop package currently for robots.

My current advice is to just write your own nodes that take an input from a joystick and will output a /cmd_vel Twist. See http://www.ros.org/wiki/joystick_drivers. This makes an especially useful challenge for people new to ROS, as it requires using a provided driver for their XBOX/PS3/Wiimote and then interfacing that to their robot through their own small, easy segment of code.

The same could easily be done for keyboard input.

I'd recommend looking at https://github.com/cwru-robotics/cwru-ros-pkg/blob/master/cwru_semi_stable/cwru_teleop/src/teleop_cwru_joy.cpp">our teleop node that takes in an XBOX 360 controller as /joy and outputs a twist if you need to see how someone else did it.

For keyboard related teleop, the hardest part would be capturing the key presses. You might find something useful in the old teleop_base code. The segment for capturing key-presses should still be valid, just be sure the dependencies are all still good or that you can find useful versions of them. You may also want to check out the brown-ros-pkg teleop_twist_keyboard code to see if there are useful hints there.

My guess is that joysticks vary too much in number and order of axes that no one would find a more universal driver that useful. It would seem that we would end up with XBOX->Twist, PS3->Twist, and WiiMoteNunchuk->Twist, so it's probably better to quickly whip up your own.

Hi there!

We recently used the teleop_base package to move our robot (in Gazebo) with our Logitech RumblePad 2 controller.

We ran into a major bug, which made the node crash. My question now is, should I file a ticket although the package is deprecated?

The effort for fixing the bug would be small. I think this package is still useful, since people with a similar controller to the PS3/Logitech RumblePad can easily set up a teleop pipeline without doing any/a lot of coding.

:-) Marcus

PS: for fixing the bug we changed

00193 
00194   ros::Rate pub_rate(20);
00195 
00196   TeleopBase teleop_base(no_publish);
00197   teleop_base.init();
00198

to

00193 
00194   TeleopBase teleop_base(no_publish);
00195   teleop_base.init();
00196   
00197   ros::Rate pub_rate(20); 
00198

For Hydro, this one seemed cool ! http://wiki.ros.org/teleop_twist_keyboard

Hey Jeff,

In my experience, you should use the code shown in the turotial Writing a Teleoperation Node for a Linux-Supported Joystick.

It creates a very handy joystick teleop system. You can easily associate one axis with one velocity command type and set its output range directly from the launch file:

<launch>
...
 <!-- Axes -->
  <param name="axis_linear" value="1" type="int"/>
  <param name="axis_angular" value="0" type="int"/>
  <param name="scale_linear" value="2" type="double"/>
  <param name="scale_angular" value="2" type="double"/>

  <node pkg="turtle_teleop" type="turtle_teleop_joy" name="teleop"/>

</launch>

Still, as Chad said, you need to make the node output a cmd_vel twist message.

Raph

We provide a fairly generic Joy->Twist node in this package, which you're welcome to use: clearpath_teleop

There's no keyboard component at this point, though you'd be welcome to contribute one. Also, it's rospy, which may be problematic depending on your environment and needs.