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

Configuring a real Baxter setup


In the Installing Baxter SDK software section, we loaded the workstation computer SDK software used to control Baxter. This control can be either through the baxter_example programs described previously, through Python scripts, or using the command line. To control the real Baxter, the baxter.sh script is used to set up the environmental variables for configuring the network for Baxter. Ensure that you have completed the Configuring Baxter shell section before continuing.

The Baxter Research Robot can be configured to communicate with a development workstation computer over various network configurations. An Ethernet network or a wireless network can be established between Baxter and the workstation computer for bi-directional communication. For full descriptions of the various network configurations for Baxter and the workstation, refer to the Rethink wiki at http://sdk.rethinkrobotics.com/wiki/Networking.

To communicate with Baxter, the baxter.sh script must...