ivogeorg / robot_gui

Checkpoint 4

robot_gui

A simple GUI to control and monitor a Mir robot.

Submission notes

Run

1. Compile all packages with catkin_make. Otherwise the Mir Gazebo maze simulation won't work and messages published to /cmd_vel won't have any effect.
2. If necessary, compile the robot GUI control node with catkin_make --only-pkg-with-deps robot_gui.
3. Launch the Mir Gazebo maze simulation with roslaunch mir_gazebo mir_maze_world.launch.
4. Run the distance tracker service node with rosrun distance_tracker_service distance_tracker_service.
5. Run the robot info node with rosrun robot_info agv_robot_info_node.
6. Run the robot control GUI node with rosrun robot_gui robot_gui_node.

General notes

1. All the required elements were implemented and tested per the grading guide.
2. There are files under include/robot_gui and src that start with tiny_. They were used to hunt down a subtle bug where including the ros::NodeHandle in the RobotGUI constructor init list with a name invalidated the object and any subsequent subscriptions, advertisements, and service client registrations were ineffective. Please, ignore them.
3. There are several tags that follow the progress of the implementation. They are all before the tag required for the submission. It will be added after these notes are finished.
4. I opted out of the optional reset distance service, but it would have been a straightforward addition to the distance_tracker_service package files and the addition of a "Reset" CVUI button to the robot control GUI.

Unresponsiveness to /cmd_vel

Initially the simulation didn't respond to any /cmd_vel. It took (re)building all the packages with catkin_make. There are still spawning failures, missing frames passed to lookupTransform, and update rate failures, but the Mir robot responds to the Robot Steering GUI.

Implementation notes

Table

Element	CVUI	ROS	Notes
Gen Info Area	Window with title	Sub /robot_info	Print multiple lines
Teleop Buttons	Buttons	Pub /cmd_vel	By increments vertical/horizontal
Current velocity	Window with title	Sub /odom	Linear x, angular z
Robot position	Window with title	Sub /odom	Linear x, y, z separate
Distance traveled	Trigger button + window with title	Service client	/get_distance
Reset distance	Trigger button	Service client	(Optional) /reset_distance

CVUI Stuff

1. The frame is defined as cv::Mat(int rows, int cols, int type), so vertical dimension (y) is first, and horizontal (x) is second.
2. cvui functions (button, text, window, etc.), however, all take the position of the element as (x, y).
3. Origin is UP-LEFT, so x grows to the right from the left, and y grows down from the top.