Robot Base Package

Robot Base provides the fundamental motor control and teleoperation functionality for the AutoSLAM robotic system.

Overview

This package contains:

• Motor Control: Hardware abstraction for robot motor control
• Teleoperation: Keyboard-based robot control interface
• Hardware Support: PCA9685 PWM driver interface for servo/motor control

Features

Motor Control Node (motor_node)

• Subscribes to cmd_vel messages for robot movement commands
• Provides safety timeout to stop motors if no commands received
• Publishes motor status information
• Hardware abstraction for different motor configurations

Teleop WASD Node (teleop_wasd)

• Keyboard-based robot control using WASD keys
• Real-time speed adjustment
• Emergency stop functionality
• Intuitive control interface

Usage

Basic Motor Control

# Start motor control node
ros2 run robot_base motor_node

# Send movement commands
ros2 topic pub /cmd_vel geometry_msgs/msg/Twist '{linear: {x: 0.5}, angular: {z: 0.0}}'

Keyboard Teleoperation

# Start teleop node
ros2 run robot_base teleop_wasd

# Use WASD keys to control robot
# W/S: Forward/Backward
# A/D: Left/Right turns
# Q/Space: Stop

Complete Robot Bringup

# Start motor control with teleop
ros2 launch robot_base bringup.launch.py enable_teleop:=true

# Start motor control only
ros2 launch robot_base bringup.launch.py

Parameters

Motor Node Parameters

• max_duty: Maximum duty cycle for motor control (default: 1000)
• cmd_vel_timeout: Safety timeout in seconds (default: 1.0)
• publish_status: Enable status publishing (default: true)
• status_frequency: Status publish rate in Hz (default: 10.0)

Teleop Node Parameters

• linear_scale: Linear velocity scaling factor (default: 1.0)
• angular_scale: Angular velocity scaling factor (default: 1.0)
• publish_rate: Command publish rate in Hz (default: 10.0)

Topics

Subscribed Topics

• /cmd_vel (geometry_msgs/Twist): Velocity commands for robot movement

Published Topics

• /motor_status (std_msgs/String): Motor status information (JSON format)

Integration

This package is designed to work with:

• autoslam: Main SLAM integration package
• oakd_driver: Camera and sensor data
• map_builder: RTAB-Map SLAM processing

Architecture Support

Distributed Processing

Robot side runs motor control, laptop handles teleoperation and SLAM processing.

Edge Computing

Robot runs motor control and SLAM processing, laptop provides teleoperation only.

Hardware Requirements

• Robot platform with motor control capability
• Optional: PCA9685 PWM driver for servo control
• I2C interface for hardware communication

Dependencies

• rclpy
• geometry_msgs
• std_msgs
• Python 3.8+

License

MIT License