Husky in The Wild

Ongoing development of exploration robot navigation in unknown outdoor environment.

Installation

The code is build on top of ROS - Indigo and simulate Husky robot using Gazebo. The code has been tested only on Ubuntu 14.04. Please follow the following steps in order to install the package along with its dependences:

• Install ROS-Indigo full desktop (guide).

• Install Husky official package (guide)

• Install the Octomap package that can be optionally used for mapping (guide)

• Install the Teleop Twist Keyboard package to control Husky using keyboard:

sudo apt-get install ros-indigo-teleop-twist-keyboard

• Install Husky other dependences. Assuming Husky package is cloned under $HUSKY_DIR$:

cd $HUSKY_DIR$
rosdep install --from-path src --ignore-src --rosdistro=indigo -y

• Install our Husky package:

cd $HUSKY_DIR$
catkin_make

• The Gazebo version shipped with ROS-Indigo has known issue of being unable to download Gazebo models from Gazebo online repository. In order to avoid errors that might come up due to this issue, download and extract Gazebo models (here [231MB] ) and place them under ~/.gazebo/models/

Running

Run source devel/setup.bash in project root in order to setup the environment variables.

The code builds each useful functionality in a separate package for better modularity. In order to run the simulated Husky, you can run every components at once or step by step.

Run all:

Script for starting everything at once, so no need for multiple terminals.

• Run in playpen: python scripts/run_playpen.py
• Run in rough terrain: python scripts/terrain.py You can specify localization and mapping algorithm by appending their name behind the command, for example:
• Use LOAM as SLAM algorithm: python scripts/run_playpen.py loam The default localization algorithm is extended kalman filter (EKF). And the default mapping algorithm is octomap.

Notice that gazebo server may be very slow to start, so if you need to restart everything frequently, you can type roslaunch husky_gazebo ${launch file} to start the server, next close the gazebo client, then run the command above

Run one by one:

Basic Husky:

roslaunch husky_gazebo husky_playpen.launch

Other launch files can be used for different other outdoor environments e.g., husky_wild.launch, husky_terrain.launch.

Mapping:

In a different terminal, run

roslaunch octomap_server octomap_mapping.launch

This is for mapping using Octomap. Alternatively, SLAM LOAM can be used as follows

roslaunch loam_velodyne loam_velodyne.launch

Visualization:

With mapping using SLAM LOAM, it launches its own visualization (rviz).

For mapping Octomap or to just visualize the pointcloud from Husky, run in a different terminal

roslaunch husky_viz view_robot.launch

On the left panel, user can choose to either visualize the instant pointcloud or the constructed map by changing the Topic of Sensing->PointCloud2.

Controlling:

To control Husky using the keyboard, run in a different terminal

roslaunch husky_control teleop_keyboard.launch

Parameter Hacking

TODO