Book Image

ROS Robotics By Example, Second Edition - Second Edition

By : Carol Fairchild, Lentin Joseph, Dr. Thomas L. Harman
Book Image

ROS Robotics By Example, Second Edition - Second Edition

By: Carol Fairchild, Lentin Joseph, Dr. Thomas L. Harman

Overview of this book

ROS is a robust robotics framework that works regardless of hardware architecture or hardware origin. It standardizes most layers of robotics functionality from device drivers to process control and message passing to software package management. But apart from just plain functionality, ROS is a great platform to learn about robotics itself and to simulate, as well as actually build, your first robots. This does not mean that ROS is a platform for students and other beginners; on the contrary, ROS is used all over the robotics industry to implement flying, walking and diving robots, yet implementation is always straightforward, and never dependent on the hardware itself. ROS Robotics has been the standard introduction to ROS for potential professionals and hobbyists alike since the original edition came out; the second edition adds a gradual introduction to all the goodness available with the Kinetic Kame release. By providing you with step-by-step examples including manipulator arms and flying robots, the authors introduce you to the new features. The book is intensely practical, with space given to theory only when absolutely necessary. By the end of this book, you will have hands-on experience on controlling robots with the best possible framework.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
ROS Robotics By Example Second Edition
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Preface
Index

Gazebo


Gazebo is a free and open source robot simulation environment developed by Willow Garage. As a multifunctional tool for ROS robot developers, Gazebo supports the following:

  • Designing of robot models

  • Rapid prototyping and testing of algorithms

  • Regression testing using realistic scenarios

  • Simulation of indoor and outdoor environments

  • Simulation of sensor data for laser range finders, 2D/3D cameras, kinect-style sensors, contact sensors, force-torque, and more

  • Advanced 3D objects and environments utilizing Object-Oriented Graphics Rendering Engine (OGRE)

  • Several high-performance physics engines (Open Dynamics Engine (ODE), Bullet, Simbody, and Dynamic Animation and Robotics Toolkit (DART)) to model the real-world dynamics

In this section, we will load our two-wheeled robot URDF into Gazebo to visualize it in a 3D environment. Gazebo allows you to take control of some aspects of our model without an external control program. In the later chapters, we will be using simulated versions of robots...