Getting Started with ROS and Gazebo
Q. What is ROS? A. ROS is an open-source software. ROS in complete terms is Robots Operating System. Though in full terms it is not a complete Operating System but it acts similar to an operating system. There are several nodes which control several commands and process and fially outputs a result which is directly sent to the Robot. ROS acts a CPU for several applications related to robots like MOVEit, Gazebo to work.
Q. What is Gazebo? A. Many times we cannot use a real robot for testing purposes as there may be some damage to the robot while testing and also loss of time and hardwork. Therefore we use a simulated world where we use a simulated Robot and try our code on such a robot. Such a simulated environment is called Gazebo.
Installation of ROS:
At the time of writing there qare two versions of ROS available
- ROS Melodic
- ROS Noetic
Installation of ROS Melodic:
ROS Melodic needs to installed on Ubuntu 18.04 The instructions for it are: http://wiki.ros.org/melodic/Installation/Ubuntu
similarly
ROS Noetic needs to be installed on Ubunuu 20 The instructions for it are: http://wiki.ros.org/noetic/Installation/Ubuntu
Installation of Ubuntu Software:
There are two ways to do so:
- Using VM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbmRXJJKsvs
- Dual booting your Pc: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5QyjHIYwTQ
These methods are for Ubuntu 18.04 similarly you can do for 20.04 by downloading corresponding zip file for 20.04
I would prefer to follow the second method as we can use our own GPU in it but since many laptops don't have enough RAM for dual booting you can go for the first method.
Q. What are the sources from studying ROS A. The official ROS site is where you get everything but the problem is that as a beginner you are not able to understand it clearly therefore I prefer you to visit (The Construct)[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCt6Lag-vv25fTX3e11mVY1Q] youtube channel. They have amazing videos. See their playlists thouroughly.
Other instructions are present in the theory folder of this Repo.
Q. Why study ROS? A. It's completely a personal decision to study ROS but ROS is nothing but a new skill to learn and in situations like that of COVID-19 people, doctors and companies are more relying towards a more human-free environment i.e. we are preferring robots also the amount of ROS developers in the world are very less compared to other fields like that of WebD,AppD, ML/DL. Further it is predicted that there will be a huge demand for Robots in the nearing future.
Q. Do I have any jobs related to ROS? A. I have researched a lot while learning ROS and found out that most of the world's top companies have their own Robots development sector. For example Amazon and Google spend a lot of their money on research in Robotics and all these companies use ROS as their software. Of course 2-3 months course on ROS won't make you eligible in these companies, you need to have a good specialization in this course also a MS degree from foreign universites is always a preffered option.
Q. Whom should I contact for doubts?
A. You can contact me for ROS related doubts or even having some light talks on any topic.
My email id:- thakur.6@iitj.ac.in
phone no. 9769252333