Book Image

ROS Robotics Projects - Second Edition

By : Ramkumar Gandhinathan
Book Image

ROS Robotics Projects - Second Edition

By: Ramkumar Gandhinathan

Overview of this book

Nowadays, heavy industrial robots placed in workcells are being replaced by new age robots called cobots, which don't need workcells. They are used in manufacturing, retail, banks, energy, and healthcare, among other domains. One of the major reasons for this rapid growth in the robotics market is the introduction of an open source robotics framework called the Robot Operating System (ROS). This book covers projects in the latest ROS distribution, ROS Melodic Morenia with Ubuntu Bionic (18.04). Starting with the fundamentals, this updated edition of ROS Robotics Projects introduces you to ROS-2 and helps you understand how it is different from ROS-1. You'll be able to model and build an industrial mobile manipulator in ROS and simulate it in Gazebo 9. You'll then gain insights into handling complex robot applications using state machines and working with multiple robots at a time. This ROS book also introduces you to new and popular hardware such as Nvidia's Jetson Nano, Asus Tinker Board, and Beaglebone Black, and allows you to explore interfacing with ROS. You'll learn as you build interesting ROS projects such as self-driving cars, making use of deep learning, reinforcement learning, and other key AI concepts. By the end of the book, you'll have gained the confidence to build interesting and intricate projects with ROS.
Table of Contents (14 chapters)

Waiter robot analogy

Let's continue with our waiter robot analogy to understand state machines better. Have a look at the following setup:

Waiter robot analogy

Let's try to get in-depth and list the possible tasks that need to be carried out by the robot:

  • Navigate to the tables (T1, T2, ..., and T6, as shown in the preceding diagram).
  • Take the order from the customer.
  • Go to the kitchen (and confirm with the chef if necessary).
  • Bring the food to the customer (from the delivery area, as shown in the preceding diagram).

The robot can navigate around the restaurant autonomously and reach customer locations based on the table the customer is seated at. In this process, the robot has the necessary information such as the locations of the table, delivery, kitchen, storeroom, and charging area through the map it has created. Once the robot has reached the table, let&apos...