pioneer_tutorials

A set of instructions and tutorials are provided to perform simulations in Gazebo using the Pioneer 3Dx model.

The recommended workstation setup is

System: Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
ROS distro: Kinetic

ROS Installation Instructions (Ubuntu)

Setup your sources.list and keys

sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://packages.ros.org/ros/ubuntu $(lsb_release -sc) main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ros-latest.list'
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver 'hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80' --recv-key C1CF6E31E6BADE8868B172B4F42ED6FBAB17C654

Installation of ROS-Desktop-Full Install: (Recommended) which includes ROS, rqt, rviz, robot-generic libraries, Gazebo7, etc.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ros-kinetic-desktop-full

Initialize rosdep

sudo rosdep init
rosdep update

Environment setup

echo "source /opt/ros/kinetic/setup.bash" >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

Dependencies for building packages

sudo apt install python-rosinstall python-rosinstall-generator python-wstool build-essential

Install catkin_tools (Recommended over catkin_make)

sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://packages.ros.org/ros/ubuntu `lsb_release -sc` main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ros-latest.list'
wget http://packages.ros.org/ros.key -O - | sudo apt-key add -
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install python-catkin-tools

Setup a catkin workspace (if not done already):

mkdir -p ~/catkin_ws/src
cd ~/catkin_ws
catkin init

Use catkin_build to build packages
```
cd ~/catkin_ws
catkin build
```

Note that catkin build is another build tool than catkin_make. Make sure you will only use one method. In case you want to switch between the two tools, you need to delete the build directory first by running:
```
    cd ~/catkin_ws
    sudo rm -r build
    sudo rm -r devel
    sudo rm -r logs
```

Install Git which is needed to install some packages from source
```
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install git-core
```

Gazebo Installation

Gazebo 7 is installed by default with ROS-Desktop-Full installation. It is the recmmended version for ROS Kinetic
Make sure you have the ROS packages "ros-control" and "ros-controllers" installed
```
sudo apt-get install ros-kinetic-ros-control ros-kinetic-ros-controllers
```

Pioneer_Gazebo_ROS Installation

Install packages needed for simulations based on pioneer_gazebo_ros

sudo apt-get install ros-kinetic-move-base ros-kinetic-move-base-msgs ros-kinetic-gmapping
cd ~/catkin_ws/src
git clone https://github.com/JenJenChung/pioneer_gazebo_ros.git
git clone https://github.com/JenJenChung/pioneer_description.git
git clone https://github.com/JenJenChung/pioneer_2dnav.git
git clone https://github.com/JenJenChung/nav_bundle.git
git clone https://github.com/JenJenChung/simple_navigation_goals.git
catkin build

Running single robot simulations

using a single Pioneer 3dx robot with an empty world
1. Modify the file ~/catkin_ws/src/pioneer_gazebo_ros/pioneer_gazebo/launch/pioneer_world.launch to include the preferred world (environment) for simulation. To start with an empty world with no obstacles, replace the following line
```
<arg name="world_name" value="$(find pioneer_gazebo)/worlds/utm_0.world"/>
```
  with
```
<arg name="world_name" value="$(find pioneer_gazebo)/worlds/blank.world"/>
```
  Note: for a list of available worlds files, check ~/catkin_ws/src/pioneer_gazebo_ros/pioneer_gazebo/worlds
2. Run the simulation and control interface:
```
    roslaunch pioneer_gazebo pioneer_world.launch && roslaunch pioneer_ros pioneer_controller_spin_recover.launch
```
3. Odometery (position and velocity) of the robot is being published over the topic /odom of type nav_msgs/Odometry
4. Velocity commands can be sent to the robot using the topic /pioneer/cmd_vel of type geometry_msgs/Twist

Running multiple robots simulations

using multiple Pioneer 3dx robots in an empty world
1. Modify the file ~/catkin_ws/src/pioneer_gazebo_ros/pioneer_gazebo/launch/pioneer_world.launch to include the preferred world (environment) for simulation. To start with an empty world with no obstacles, replace the following line
```
<arg name="world_name" value="$(find pioneer_gazebo)/worlds/utm_0.world"/>
```
  with
```
<arg name="world_name" value="$(find pioneer_gazebo)/worlds/blank.world"/>
```
  Note: for a list of available worlds files, check ~/catkin_ws/src/pioneer_gazebo_ros/pioneer_gazebo/worlds
2. Run the simulation, spawn vehicles at random initial positions, and run control interface:
```
cd ~/catkin_ws/src/pioneer_gazebo_ros
./run_multi_pioneer
```
3. Odometery topic and velocity commands of each robot will have a namesapce, for example, /pioneer1/odom and /pioneer1/pioneer/cmd_vel

taha-elmokadem/pioneer_tutorials