Just posting this for those who venture into ROS and Python and got a bit lost like me!

Odometry was fairly simple, but the Laser/PML sensor was a bit more fickle:

I found this:

http://ttp://forums.trossenrobotics.com/printthread.php?t=4304&pp=10&page=8)

for which I was very grateful, thanks

PML or poor man's laser a sharp IR range finder in my case:

From the Trossen Forum

Finally, my version of your PML node to simulate the laser scan:

the code block seems to misbehave to scroll down

you might need to add top line...

!/usr/bin/env python

Notice.....

rospy.init_node("base_scan") scanPub = rospy.Publisher('base_scan', LaserScan) scanBroadcaster = TransformBroadcaster()

I got stuck on that....

and.......

scan.header.frame_id = "base_link"

also:

The scan.ranges is a list, so you collate the ranges from your sensor, and assign that to scan.ranges

If the min max and inc angles are set properly it works....

You also need a transform

This is commented out in the above code snippet

something like this:

!/usr/bin/env python
import roslib roslib.load_manifest('<your package="" name="">') import rospy import tf

if __name__ == '__main__': rospy.init_node('my_tf_broadcaster') br = tf.TransformBroadcaster() rate = rospy.Rate(10.0) while not rospy.is_shutdown(): br.sendTransform((0.16, 0.0, 0.11), (0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0), rospy.Time.now(), "base_scan", "base_link") print ".",
rate.sleep()

------end------------------

Hi,

Progress

Well I found http://www.hessmer.org/blog/tag/python/

which is proving to be useful......gives me a template esp the configuration files and the python examples

Also got some clues on maps etc which solved another question I had from the tutorials

I'm not too daunted by the basic coding it's the configuration...

Put arduino cmdMessenger on as the robot is in bits...wrote a quick simulator on the arduino for movement scans etc that tip saved alot of time

Silly Question

Got some silly questions about the values passed, esp in odometry

dvx dvy.....assuming velocity

but deltas to me can be 2 things

1. change in values between 2 measured points or
2. velocity measured at point d1, d2

I am assuming 2.

thanks

Dave

Hiya,

thanks I've done alot of the tutorials, in C(++) and python

so I've got to the point of robot setup and making notes on the c++ and trying to abstract to python and custom robot.

From the frameworks I've looked at ROS is way ahead of most in that it installs, documentation is updating and it's there!

Just I have to catch up with what I am trying to implement and there's alot in the detail.

I'll try and write things up as I go.

The good Dr.s work is very helpful like a worked example! the config files etc in the package and as I've found maps, UDRF etc the yaml etc and launch config files so that gives me a really good start.

All those things start to answer the other questions I have.

I live in country australia, so there's not a great deal of peer chat going on it slows things down.

Meanwhile back to learning threading and queues...

Dave