README.md

Go_Chase_It_ROS

Aim

Driving a skid-steer robot in Gazebo 3D environment interfaced with ROS to chase any coloured ball with the help of hough circle transformation.

1. drive_bot:

• Create a my_robot ROS package to hold your robot, the white ball, and the world.
• Design a skid-steer robot with the Unified Robot Description Format. Add two sensors to the robot: a lidar and a camera. Add Gazebo plugins for the skid-steer robot, lidar, and camera.
• House your robot inside the Gazebo 3D environment.
• Add a white-colored ball to your Gazebo world and save a new copy of this world.
• The world.launch file will launch the world with the white-colored ball and the robot.

2. ball_chaser:

• Create a ball_chaser ROS package to hold your C++ nodes.
• Write a drive_bot C++ node that will provide a ball_chaser/command_robot service to drive the robot by controlling its linear x and angular z velocities. The service will publish to the wheel joints and return back the requested velocities.
• Write a process_image C++ node that reads the robot’s camera image, analyzes it to determine the presence and position of a white ball using Hough Circle Transform. If a white ball exists in the image, the node will request a service via a client to drive the robot towards it.
• The ball_chaser.launch will run both the drive_bot and the process_image nodes.

Prerequisites/Dependencies

• Gazebo >= 7.0
• ROS Kinetic
• make >= 4.1(mac, linux), 3.81(Windows)
  • Linux: make is installed by default on most Linux distros
  • Mac: install Xcode command line tools to get make
  • Windows: Click here for installation instructions
• gcc/g++ >= 5.4
  • Linux: gcc / g++ is installed by default on most Linux distros
  • Mac: same deal as make - [install Xcode command line tools]((https://developer.apple.com/xcode/features/)
  • Windows: recommend using MinGW

Project Description

Directory Structure

.Go_Chase_It_ROS                                   
├── catkin_ws                                  # Catkin workspace
│   ├── src
│   │   ├── ball_chaser                        # ball_chaser package        
│   │   │   ├── launch                         # launch folder for launch files
│   │   │   │   ├── ball_chaser.launch
│   │   │   ├── src                            # source folder for C++ scripts
│   │   │   │   ├── drive_bot.cpp
│   │   │   │   ├── process_images.cpp
│   │   │   ├── srv                            # service folder for ROS services
│   │   │   │   ├── DriveToTarget.srv
│   │   │   ├── CMakeLists.txt                 # compiler instructions
│   │   │   ├── package.xml                    # package info
│   │   ├── my_robot                           # my_robot package        
│   │   │   ├── launch                         # launch folder for launch files   
│   │   │   │   ├── robot_description.launch
│   │   │   │   ├── world.launch
│   │   │   ├── meshes                         # meshes folder for sensors
│   │   │   │   ├── hokuyo.dae
│   │   │   ├── urdf                           # urdf folder for xarco files
│   │   │   │   ├── my_robot.gazebo
│   │   │   │   ├── my_robot.xacro
│   │   │   ├── worlds                         # world folder for world files
│   │   │   │   ├── myworld.world
│   │   │   ├── CMakeLists.txt                 # compiler instructions
│   │   │   ├── package.xml                    # package info
├── video                                     
│   ├── chase_ball.gif                          # video

Run the project

• Clone this repository under the src folder of your catkin_ws.
• Open the repository and make

cd /home/workspace/catkin_ws/
catkin_make

• Launch my_robot in Gazebo to load both the world and plugins

roslaunch my_robot world.launch

• Launch ball_chaser and process_image nodes

cd /home/workspace/catkin_ws/
source devel/setup.bash
roslaunch ball_chaser ball_chaser.launch

• Visualize

cd /home/workspace/catkin_ws/
source devel/setup.bash
rosrun rqt_image_view rqt_image_view  

License

This repository is licensed under the terms of the MIT license.