Book Image

ROS Robotics By Example

By : Carol Fairchild, Harman
Book Image

ROS Robotics By Example

By: Carol Fairchild, Harman

Overview of this book

The visionaries who created ROS developed a framework for robotics centered on the commonality of robotic systems and exploited this commonality in ROS to expedite the development of future robotic systems. From the fundamental concepts to advanced practical experience, this book will provide you with an incremental knowledge of the ROS framework, the backbone of the robotics evolution. ROS standardizes many layers of robotics functionality from low-level device drivers to process control to message passing to software package management. This book provides step-by-step examples of mobile, armed, and flying robots, describing the ROS implementation as the basic model for other robots of these types. By controlling these robots, whether in simulation or in reality, you will use ROS to drive, move, and fly robots using ROS control.
Table of Contents (12 chapters)
11
Index

Chapter 1. Getting Started with ROS

In this chapter, we will introduce the Robot Operating System (ROS), which is a collection of software packages to aid researchers and developers using robotic systems. After we discuss the instructions to install ROS on your computer system using the Ubuntu operating system, the ROS architecture and many of its components are discussed. This will aid you in understanding the use of ROS to develop software for robotic applications.

ROS will be introduced in terms of its elements and their functions. An understanding of the ROS vocabulary is necessary to become proficient in using ROS to create programs for the control of real or simulated robots as well as devices, such as cameras.

To make the discussion more concrete, the turtlesim simulator will be presented with various examples of the ROS command usage. This simulator is part of ROS and it provides an excellent introduction to the capabilities of ROS.

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

  • What ROS is and which robots use ROS
  • How to install and launch ROS on your computer
  • How to navigate the ROS directories
  • An introduction to ROS packages, nodes, and topics
  • Examples of useful ROS commands
  • How to use ROS commands with the turtlesim simulator