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USARSim-UT3 with ROS

2011-06-22
2012-12-14
  • Harmish Khambhaita

    hi,

    i am a phd student, working at dfki, saarbruecken, germany. I am writing this as informative post to let the community know/help connection of USARSim-UT3 with ROS.

    I just want to let the USARSim community know that i am trying to connect USARSim with ROS (www.ros.org). I am doing this as a part of eu-project nifti (www.nifti.eu). In this project we are developing a robotic system which tries to achieve natural human-robot interaction in urban search and rescue scenarios. Our system mainly uses two middlewares ROS and CAST (http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/cosy/cast/index.php). ROS works for lower level communication/drivers/mapping etc., while CAST is used for higher level cognitive system for planning/reasoning/dialogue etc. So far we have only worked with real robots. USARSim-UT3 provides high fidelity simulation environment for robots. We would like to make our system work on simulated robot.

    In the first year of the porject we have used P3AT robot with laser and a ladybug3 camera (www.ptgrey.com). In the second year we hvae a new robot built by blue-botics in lausanne, switzerland.

    Currently I am trying to use the P3AT robot model provided by USARSim to work with our first year system. Infuture we would like to implement model of our new nifti robot.

    So far I have achieved this:
    - installing, compiling  and running example (TestRoom) of USARSim on UDK (february build), on Windows 7 machine.
    - installing, compiling and running example of 'ROS for Windows' from REC Gmbh (http://servicerobotics.eu/en/other-projects/ros-fuer-windows/)
    - using UPIS image server provided by MrCS (http://athiri.cimds.ri.cmu.edu/foswiki/UsarSim/WebHome)
    - writing a small C++ program which connects with ROS/CAST system running on a Ubuntu/Linux machine using ROS for Windows. the program also connect with USARSim and UPIS using sockets. the program communicaes socket messges to control the virtual robot from our nifti system GUI using standard ROS cmd_vel messages. the program also receives images from UPIS and sends them to ROS/CAST system using standard ros image message.

    If someone interested in collaborating on this she/he is welcome. I woul also appriciate any suggestions or comments.

    best,
    harmish.

     
  • mohammad

    mohammad - 2011-06-28

    Dear Harmish,
    I finished my phd one year ago, now I am doing research in Jacobs University in Germany. My task is to control mutiRobots  by ROS-UT3-USARSim. By the way, I am a starter in both. I do need to model a robot (just a bosx and 3wheels and a laser scanner LS100) . I find a difficulty in robot modeling.
    Please advise,

    Looking for more cooperation and community communication.

    Dr. Khawaldah
    Jacobs Uni
    Germany

     
  • Stephen Balakirsky

    Dear Harmish,
    Can you commit your work to the tools directory of USARSim? I think that many others would find a ROS-USARSim interface very useful.

    Best,
    Steveb.

     
  • mohammad

    mohammad - 2011-07-28

    Hi,
    What do you mean by " commit your work to the tools directory of USARSim "

    Thanks,
    Mohammad

     

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