amanarora9848 / Object_chaser_botcar_ROS

A basic implementation of a simple monochromatic object chaser robot with ROS (C++), surely to be improved over time.

Object_chaser_botcar_ROS

A basic implementation of a simple object chaser robot with ROS, surely to be improved over time.

Requirements

This makes use of Gazebo7, RViz and ROS Kinetic.

Directory Structure

.
├── ball_chaser
│   ├── CMakeLists.txt
│   ├── launch
│   │   └── ball_chaser.launch
│   ├── package.xml
│   ├── src
│   │   ├── drive_bot.cpp
│   │   └── process_image.cpp
│   └── srv
│       └── DriveToTarget.srv
├── my_robot
│   ├── CMakeLists.txt
│   ├── launch
│   │   ├── robot_description.launch
│   │   └── world.launch
│   ├── meshes
│   │   └── hokuyo.dae
│   ├── package.xml
│   ├── urdf
│   │   ├── my_robot.gazebo
│   │   └── my_robot.xacro
│   └── world
│       └── AmanWorld.world
└── README.md

Running the simulation:

Update and upgrade packages:

$ sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

First, we need to build a catkin workspace for the project. Navigate to your preferred directory, then:

mkdir -p ocbr_catkin_workspace/src/
cd ocbr_catkin_workspace/src/

Time to initialize the catkin workspace:

catkin_init_workspace

Now clone this repo:

git clone https://github.com/amanarora9848/Object_chaser_botcar_ROS.git

The 'chaser' ROS nodes have been written for you in the ball_chaser/src directory.

The drive_bot node will provide a service to drive robot around, and the service server publishes messages containing velocities for wheel joints.

The process_image node subscibes to robot's camera images, finds our desired object, and then uses the client node to request service from drive_bot server node.

Navigate back to our base directory ocbr_catkin_workspace

Here, run catkin_make to build the package:

catkin_make

Now, do:

source devel/setup.bash

In this terminal, let's launch our robot inside our strange Gazebo world. The launch file for this can be found in /src/my_robot/launch/world.launch relative to the current diretory:

roslaunch my_robot world.launch

It opens up a nice little Gazebo world, with our robot inside it.

Now, open a new terminal window, navigate to our ocbr_catkin_workspace directory and run our nodes. It makes use of ball_chaser.launch file situated inside /src/ball_chaser/launch/ directory relative to our current one.

source devel/setup.bash
roslaunch ball_chaser ball_chaser.launch

If everything works fine, you can place the white object in front of our red bot to test its working.