Baxter Teleoperation system using HTC Vive

A Baxter teleoperation system that runs on a single Linux Ubuntu (16.04) machine. An example of this system being demonstrated is available here

Getting Started

Follow these instructions to get a copy of the project up and running on your local machine for development and testing purposes.

Dependencies

Python 2.7  https://www.python.org/downloads/
ROS Kinetic http://wiki.ros.org/kinetic
Baxter Robot or Simulator http://sdk.rethinkrobotics.com/wiki/Workstation_Setup
Steam VR http://store.steampowered.com/steamvr
PyOpenVR https://github.com/cmbruns/pyopenvr

Baxter must be enabled as following instructions in: http://sdk.rethinkrobotics.com/wiki/Workstation_Setup
A virtual Baxter Gazebo simulation can be also be used: http://sdk.rethinkrobotics.com/wiki/Simulator_Installation

Installation

To build the teleoperation system, create a ROS workspace

mkdir -p baxter_ws/src or similar
cd baxter_ws/src
git clone https://github.com/kwunh/vive_teleoperation
cd ..
# or catkin build
catkin_make
source devel/setup.bash

Running applications:

Running teleoperation system

1. Launch SteamVR & switch on all devices

2. Run Room Setup to calibrate HTC Vive

3. Launch HTC publisher:

$ cd ~/baxter_ws
$ ./baxter.sh
$ cd ~/baxter_ws/src/htc_publisher
$ roslaunch htc_publisher htc_publisher.launch

OPTIONAL IF RUNNING BAXTER SIMULATION

3.1) Launch RVIZ for tf visualisation:

$ rosrun rviz rviz

3.2) Launch Baxter Simulation:

$ roslaunch baxter_gazebo baxter_world.launch

4. Launch Baxter Subscriber:

$ cd ~/baxter_ws
$ ./baxter.sh
$ cd ~/baxter_ws/src/baxter_subscriber
$ python main.py

Published topics:

Topic                     Type                        Rate
/tf                       tf2_msgs/TFMessage          250Hz
/vive_left                sensor_msgs/Joy             On Event
/vive_right               sensor_msgs/Joy             On Event
/left_controller_as_ps    geometry_msgs/PoseStamped   30Hz
/right_controller_as_ps   geometry_msgs/PoseStamped   30Hz

Running zed_opengl

1. Launch ZED wrapper

$ cd ~/baxter_ws
$ ./baxter.sh sim
$ cd ~/baxter_ws/src/zed_wrapper
$ roslaunch zed_wrapper display_zedm.launch

2. Launch ZED subscriber for left eye:

$ cd ~/baxter_ws
$ ./baxter.sh sim
$ cd ~/baxter_ws/src/zed_opengl/src
$ python left_eye.py

3. Launch ZED subscriber for right eye:

$ cd ~/baxter_ws
$ ./baxter.sh sim
$ cd ~/baxter_ws/src/zed_opengl/src
$ python right_eye.py

Running zed_htc (Unity Application)

Ensure ZED Camera and HTC Vive are connected to the Linux machine.

Simply double click the provided executable in zed_htc: zed_camera.x86_64