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2019 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

University Rover Challenge: Tutorials and Team Survey

Authors : Daniel Snider, Matthew Mirvish, Michal Barcis, Vatan Aksoy Tezer

Published in: Robot Operating System (ROS)

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

In this tutorial chapter we present a guide to building a robot through 11 tutorials. We prescribe simple software solutions to build a wheeled robot and manipulator arm that can autonomously drive and be remotely controlled. These tutorials are what worked for several teams at the University Rover Challenge 2017 (URC). Certain tutorials provide a quick start guide to using existing Robot Operating System (ROS) tools. Others are new contributions, or explain challenging topics such as wireless communication and robot administration. We also present the results of an original survey of 8 competing teams to gather information about trends in URC’s community, which consists of hundreds of university students on over 80 teams. Additional topics include satellite mapping of robot location (mapviz), GPS integration (original code) to autonomous navigation (move_base), and more. We hope to promote collaboration and code reuse.

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previous chapter A Backstepping Non-smooth Controller for ROS-Based Differential-Drive Mobile Robots

next chapter SROS1: Using and Developing Secure ROS1 Systems

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When a connection is latched, the last message published is saved and automatically sent to any future subscribers of that connection.

Team ITU’s low level communication source code https://github.com/itu-rover/2016-2017-Sensor-GPS-STM-Codes-/blob/master/STM32/project/mpu_test/Src/main.c.

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TerraUnity computer graphics software used to the visualize the rover at its GPS location in a topographical simulation of earth http://terraunity.com/.

Team R3’s autonomous software architecture diagram in Microsoft Visio format https://github.com/danielsnider/ros-rover/blob/master/diagrams/team_r3_AUTO_Diagram.vsdx?raw=true.

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More ZED camera documentation https://www.stereolabs.com/documentation/guides/using-zed-with-ros/ZED_node.html.

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Republish ROS node documentation http://wiki.ros.org/image_transport#republish.

Python ROS script to reduce bandwidth usage of video streams https://github.com/teamr3/URC/blob/master/rosws/src/rover/src/low_res_stream.py.

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RTAB-Map documentation http://wiki.ros.org/rtabmap_ros.

Team R3’s launch file for RTAB-Map https://github.com/teamr3/URC/blob/master/rosws/src/rover_navigation/launch/rtabmap.launch.

Video of an autonomous navigation by Team R3 with RTAB-Map and the ZED stereo camera https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_1nkSQS8HE.

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Team R3’s config file for base_local_planner_params.yaml configuration of move_base https://github.com/teamr3/URC/blob/master/rosws/src/rover_navigation/config/base_local_planner_params.yaml.

Documentation for base_local_planner http://wiki.ros.org/base_local_planner.

Documentation and source code for MapViz https://github.com/swri-robotics/mapviz.

Docker container for proxying Google Maps toMapViz https://github.com/danielsnider/MapViz-Tile-Map-Google-Maps-Satellite.

MapProxy config file https://github.com/danielsnider/docker-mapproxy-googlemaps/blob/master/mapproxy.yaml.

Homepage for Tmux the terminal multiplexer https://github.com/tmux/tmux/wiki.

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The tmuxinator config used by Team R3 to start all the base station software components https://github.com/teamr3/URC/blob/master/devstuff/dan/.tmuxinator.yml.

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Title: University Rover Challenge: Tutorials and Team Survey
Authors: Daniel Snider
Matthew Mirvish
Michal Barcis
Vatan Aksoy Tezer
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Book: Robot Operating System (ROS)
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-91589-0

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-91590-6

Copyright Year: 2019
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91590-6_10

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