Book Image

Learning Robotics using Python - Second Edition

By : Lentin Joseph
Book Image

Learning Robotics using Python - Second Edition

By: Lentin Joseph

Overview of this book

Robot Operating System (ROS) is one of the most popular robotics software frameworks in research and industry. It has various features for implementing different capabilities in a robot without implementing them from scratch. This book starts by showing you the fundamentals of ROS so you understand the basics of differential robots. Then, you'll learn about robot modeling and how to design and simulate it using ROS. Moving on, we'll design robot hardware and interfacing actuators. Then, you'll learn to configure and program depth sensors and LIDARs using ROS. Finally, you'll create a GUI for your robot using the Qt framework. By the end of this tutorial, you'll have a clear idea of how to integrate and assemble everything into a robot and how to bundle the software package.
Table of Contents (12 chapters)

Programming Kinect with Python using ROS, OpenCV, and OpenNI

Let's look at how we can interface and work with the Kinect sensor in ROS. ROS is bundled with the OpenNI driver, which can fetch the RGB and depth image of Kinect. The OpenNI and OpenNI 2 package in ROS can be used for interfacing with Microsoft Kinect, Primesense Carmine, Asus Xtion Pro, and Pro Live.

When we install ROS's openni_launch package, it will also install its dependent packages, such as openni_camera. The openni_camera package is the Kinect driver that publishes raw data and sensor information, whereas the openni_launch package contains ROS launch files. These launch files launch multiple nodes at a time and publish data such as the raw depth, RGB, and IR images, and the point cloud.

How to launch the...