Jaguarbot's operation and simulation ROS package

This is a ROS package used to operate and simulate the rover for data acquisition on mango's anthracnose Jaguarbot, which is a prototype of a mobile robot designed and manufactured for academic purposes, as part of a Degree's Project.

Author: Manuel Esteban Lugo Madrid. Degree's Project 2022-2 developed with Eng. Flavio Augusto Prieto Ortiz from the National University of Colombia.

How to use this package:

This package can be used with two purposes: first one is to operate the robot, and second one is to run a simulation with a naive robot model to check functionality.

Requirements

1. Ubuntu 20.XX, recommended Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
2. ROS installed on your machine (ROS Noetic is highly recommended to keep robustness in functionality)
3. Rosbridge Server ROS package installed

Aditional Requirements:

1. For simulation:

   1. Gazebo app and gazebo-ros package installed

2. For physical operation:

   1. Jaguarbot (or any other robot prototype which can be operated through a differential drive)
   2. Raspberry PI with Ubuntu 20.04 LTS system and ROS Noetic installed.
   3. Wifi connection, to grant communication between the robot and the control computer.

Preparation

There is no preparation required in simulation mode. However, it is needed some preparation to run the physical operation, which consists in the following:

• Connect Raspberry Pi to local network. It can be done by following this tutorial

• Check the IP address of your local machine.

  hostname -I
  

• Change your RPi variable ROS_MASTER_URI, by running the following command line (on the RPi terminal):

  export ROS_MASTER_URI=http://LOCAL_MACHINE_IP_ADDRESS:11311
  

  replacing LOCAL_MACHINE_IP_ADDRESS with your actual local machine IP address.

And that's it! By now, you should be ready to use the package to command the robot.

Hands on

For simulation

Once you have installed and sourced this package, follow the next steps:

1. Launch a terminal and run the following command

   roscore
   

2. Launch another terminal and run the following command line to launch the nodes corresponding to the simulation

   roslaunch jaguarbot simulation.launch
   

   You should now see the robot model spawned on Gazebo.
3. Run the simulation by clicking the "Play" button on Gazebo.
4. Go to web/index.html and open it on a web browser.
5. That's it. You can now command the simulated robot by clicking the instructions available in the GUI.

For physical operation

Once you have installed and sourced this package both on your machine and your RPi, and prepared properly as explained above, follow the next steps:

1. Launch a terminal and run the following command

   roscore
   

2. Launch another terminal and run the following command line to launch the nodes corresponding to the message bypassing:

   roslaunch jaguarbot host.launch
   

3. Grant permissions to use the GPIO port of your RPi by running (on your RPi) the following command:

   sudo chmod 777 /dev/gpiomem
   

4. Check your RPi ROS_MASTER_URI value by running:

   echo $ROS_MASTER_URI
   

   You should get the address explained above. If you don't, please check again the Preparation section.
5. Launch (on your RPi) the following command:

   roslaunch jaguarbot jaguarbot.launch
   

6. On your machine, go to web/index.html and open it on a web browser.
7. That's it. You can now command the physical robot by clicking the instructions available in the GUI.

Videos:

Functionality video