umi_robot_ros2

This project provides:

• ROS 2 Hardware interface,
• ROS 2 UMI Robot MoveIt package,
• and MicroROS ESP32 component for Servo control with a serial connection.

Getting Started

Hardware

This project uses the UMI robot hardware designed by Murilo Marques Marinho, Ph.D. It's a low-cost 3D printable robotic platform. You can access the UMIRobot website here. UMIRobot is an excellent platform for both robotics enthusiasts and students.

MicroROS Setup

MicroROS is a platform designed to bring ROS2 (Robot Operating System 2) to microcontrollers. This project uses a component for ESP-IDF (Espressif IoT Development Framework) that integrates MicroROS.

To set up MicroROS for this project, follow these steps:

1. Clone the MicroROS for ESP-IDF component repository:

git clone https://github.com/BarisYazici/micro_ros_espidf_component.git

2. Start the repository using the devcontainer for VSCode.

• Open the project in Visual Studio Code.
• Move the .devcontainer directory to the top level of your project.
• Press F1 to open the command palette, then run the Dev Containers: Rebuild container command.

3. Source the ESP-IDF environment setup script. This script sets up the environment variables and paths necessary for the ESP-IDF. Depending on the shell you're using, the command might be:

source $IDF_PATH/export.sh

4. Switch to the servo_drive example folder.

cd examples/servo_drive

5. Build the example servo_drive project

idf.py build

6. Connect the ESP32 to your laptop. And give read-write permission to the docker container user.

sudo chmod a+rw /dev/ttyUSB0

7. Flash the ESP32 with the servo_drive example

idf.py flash

Setting up the umi_robot_ros2 workspace

This project uses a development container in Visual Studio Code for a consistent and easily reproducible development environment.

1. Ensure you have Docker installed and running on your machine.
2. Install Visual Studio Code.
3. Install the Remote - Containers extension in Visual Studio Code.
4. Open the project in Visual Studio Code.
5. Move the .devcontainer directory to the top level of your project.
6. Press F1 to open the command palette, then run the Dev Containers: Rebuild container command.

This will build the Docker image as defined in the .devcontainer directory and start a container. Your workspace will automatically be mounted into the container, and you'll be connected to the running container.

Creating a ROS2 Workspace

Once you're in the development container, you can create a ROS2 workspace:

mkdir -p ~/ros2_ws/src
cd ~/ros2_ws/src

Building the Project

To build the project,

colcon build --symlink-install --cmake-args -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release

Connecting the ROS 2 Agent

Make sure that you connected the ESP32 through serial communication to your computer. Run the following docker container to connect the MicroROS agent.

docker run -it --rm --device=/dev/ttyUSB0 microros/micro-ros-agent:humble serial --dev /dev/ttyUSB0 -b 115200 -v6

Running the MoveIt Example

After connecting the ROS 2 agent making sure that you can receive data from the Microros agent in ESP32 microcontroller, you can run the MoveIt example with the following command:

ros2 launch umi_robot_moveit_config demo.launch.py

This will start the RViz2 application with MoveIt motion plannning plugin.