Book Image

Learning ROS for Robotics Programming

By : Aaron Martinez, Enrique Fernández
Book Image

Learning ROS for Robotics Programming

By: Aaron Martinez, Enrique Fernández

Overview of this book

<p>Both the amateur and the professional roboticist who has ever tried their hand at robotics programming will have faced with the cumbersome task of starting from scratch, usually reinventing the wheel. ROS comes with a great number of already working functionalities, and this book takes you from the first steps to the most elaborate designs possible within this software framework.</p> <p>"Learning ROS for Robotics Programming" is full of practical examples that will help you to understand the framework from the very beginning. Build your own robot applications in a simulated environment and share your knowledge with the large community supporting ROS.</p> <p>"Learning ROS for Robotics Programming" starts with the basic concepts and usage of ROS in a very straightforward and practical manner. It is a painless introduction to the fascinating world of robotics, covering sensor integration, modeling, simulation, computer vision, and navigation algorithms, among other topics.</p> <p>After the first two chapters, concepts like topics, messages, and nodes will become daily bread. Make your robot see with HD cameras, or navigate avoiding obstacles with range sensors. Furthermore, thanks to the contributions of the vast ROS community, your robot will be able to navigate autonomously, and even recognize and interact with you, in a matter of minutes.</p> <p>"Learning ROS for Robotics Programming" will give you all the background you need to know in order to start in the fascinating world of robotics and program your own robot. Simply, you put the limit!</p>
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
Learning ROS for Robotics Programming
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Using a laser rangefinder – Hokuyo URG-04lx


In mobile robotics, it is very important to know where the obstacles are, the outline of a room, and so on. The robots use maps to navigate and move across unknown spaces. The sensor used for these purposes is Lidar. This sensor is used to measure distances between the robot and objects.

In this section, you will learn how to use a low-cost Lidar that is widely used in robotics. This sensor is the Hokuyo URG-04lx rangefinder. You can obtain more information in the following link: http://www.hokuyo-aut.jp/. The Hokuyo rangefinder is a device used for navigation and building maps in real time.

In this section, you will learn how to use it using the standard drivers in ROS and how to modify the data.

The model Hokuyo URG-04lx is a low-cost rangefinder commonly used in robotics. It has a very good resolution and is very easy to use.

To start with, we are going to install the drivers for the laser.

$ sudo apt-get install ros-fuerte-laser-drivers

Once installed...