Forg Bot

Navigation with Curiosity Rover inspired holonomic mobile robot in ROS 2. Tested with ROS Humble on Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish. This is a meta-package containing the following ROS 2 packages:

• forg_description: 3D models and URDFs for the Forg Bot, including simple launchs for visualization with rviz;
• holonomic_rover_controller: Controller implemented with the ros2_control framework to control the steering and traction of the 6 Forg Bot's wheels;
• msg_utils: General purpose nodes for dealing with geometry_msgs/msg/Twist, geometry_msgs/msg/TwistStamped, nav_msgs/msg/Odometry and tf2_msgs/msg/TFMessage messages.

For more information about each package, take a look in the corresponding README.md file inside the package.

Preview

Forg Bot model displayed in rviz2:

Install

First set up a ROS 2 workspace to use the project and clone the repository

mkdir -p ~/ros2_ws/src
cd ~/ros2_ws/src
git clone [email protected]:joefscholtz/forg_bot.git

Local

If it is the first time using rosdep, run

sudo rosdep init
rosdep update

Install the dependencies with

cd ~/ros2_ws
rosdep install --from-paths src -y --ignore-src

Build the package:

cd ~/ros2_ws
colcon build --symlink-install
. install/local_setup.bash # or local_setup.zsh if zsh is the shell being used

Using Docker

The provided Dockerfile depends on building the ros2_docker:base or ros2_docker:dev image from my ros2_docker repository, so follow the instrutions from the ros2_docker README first. Having one of the ros2_docker images, the forg_bot images can be build with

cd ~/ros2_ws/src/forg_bot/
docker build --target forg_bot_dev --tag forg_bot:dev . #or base

It is also possible to build with the provided script with

cd ~/ros2_ws/src/forg_bot/
chmod +x docker_build.sh
./docker_build.sh

And then run with

cd ~/ros2_ws/src/forg_bot/
./x11run.sh

TODO

• Add license;
• Maybe it is a good idea to use FreeCAD + ROS 2 integration in the future. Sources:
  • FreeCAD ROS Workbench;
  • FreeCAD CAD & ROS Open-Source Synergy (CROSS);
  • Freecad to Gazebo Exporter.
• Set up Ignition;
• Publish base_footprint frame as being the projection of the base_link frame in the ground (I think it is best to do it in the forg_navigation package).

Special thanks

• The robot design was heavily inspired by WildWilly's Stair Climbing Rover