Here is a list of robots running ROS
I think it would be great if we could make a minimalistic, cheap, easy reproducable, simple robot running on ROS. Something to get people started with ROS, as the isolated and primary goal.
If any one out there is up for that challenge, let me know, and I'll support by such things as getting it in the menus of LMR, perhaps make videos about it, and get it on the official ROS pages, maybe turn it into a "start here" tutorial etc.
I skimmed through the robots
I skimmed through the robots running ROS. My impression is that we need:
- a mobile platform with encoders
- an interface with the computer
- a computer running Ubuntu or other Linux flavor
- expensive range sensors (Hokuyo Laser, Kinect, etc)
Most people used a Create as the mobile base, an Arduino as interface with sensors and computer, a EeePC as the brain and a Kinect sensor.
I think that we might be able to do it cheaper with any mobile base that has motors with encoders, bumper sensors, a wireless interface with a remote computer and a WiiDAR sensor (CtC’s Wii cam board plus a laser on a pan/tilt setup). A wireless camera is an added bonus (just use the tiny cameras plus receiver connected to the computer).
Personally I have a Roomba with one of my uServotino boards hooked up to the Chumby as the brain. A webcam, an EZ1 ultrasonic sensor on the pan/tilt head so far. But I plan on making a WiiDAR. Running MRL at the moment (thank you GroG for your support!), which gets closer to what ROS does. I added an arm to the setup, with the servos connected to the uServotino. I am waiting for the uBEC to arrive and some beefier servos for the arm to make it work.
My thoughts are this:-
My thoughts are this:
- Custom platform with encoders.
- Arduino/picaxe for interfacing with H-bridge/encoders/servos/sensors.
- Something like a http://www.raspberrypi.org/ for a controller maybe?
- And a Kinect (or a wiidar maybe?) for a sensor.
I’ve readed a bit about ROS.
I’ve readed a bit about ROS. I had the intention of running ROS for cr4 (my “work in progress” robot). My opinion is that ROS have a step learning curve and needs some signifiant processing power just for the basics. I really doubt that a single core processor will perform decently for a ROS based robot without doing some processing tasks outside the main processor.
A good “low cost” example of ROS driven robot is the TurtleBot and going this way I think the minimum price will be over 600 Euros not considering the time involved in building and programming the robot, so “minimalistic, cheap, easy reproductible, simple” can be done except “cheap”.
An appealing platform must have a good battery (Lithium based), a charger base, efficient motors with a good motor controller and driver software for ROS and a power supply for sensors. I would add a microcontroller based main board for communication with the computer, motor driver, charger base and sensors (actually this is a part of cr4’s intended architecture).
Why not Magabot?
We haven’t used it with ROS yet, but it is on the list of our objectives and I don’t think it would be difficult.
It is based on an arduino UNO, has motors with encoders, bumpers, IR ground sensors, RGB LEDs, a I2C bus to connect anything you want and can carry any portable computer on it 
Strange bug
Off-Topic: Why can’t I see my comments when I’m not logged in?
I think you guys might be
I think you guys might be overthinking it a bit. Simply a bluetooth controlled version of the “start here robot” would be great. Being able to drive a tiny robot with your arrow keys would be hours of fun especially for noobs.
Rasberry pi was the first
Rasberry pi was the first thing I thought of as well…and it’s almost here!
I did that with this little
I did that with this little guy. The video shows me using my cellphone but laptop works just as well.
https://www.robotshop.com/letsmakerobots/node/27745
Sounds nice… Very nice!
But does this “open the ROS universe” for the noob? Or does it just make him(her) download some stuff, and create an RC car?
Good question. It would be a
Good question. It would be a good way to introduce people to the message passing aspect of ROS, but maybe something a little more autonomous would be better.
Just found
Sorry for the long URL, but my chinese is rusty. This could probably be used together with the “LMR ROS” platform. I know I’m bookmarking that link for use on my “long term project” anyways
Seems like a clone of the
Seems like a clone of the Neato XV-11 LIDAR is coming closer, maybe that could be used?
What kind of base are you
What kind of base are you thinking of? Some kind of linux-based platform? Seems like there are more ARM based boards coming out that might be good for that.
I’ve been working towards
I’ve been working towards this. Here’s what I’ve determined so far.
There are quite a few robots consisting of an Irobot Create, a Kinect, a netbook, and most of them have an arm made up of AX12 servos and an Arbotix controller. Bilibot, Polyro, the Willow Garage Turtlebot come to mind. There are at least two or three others that come to mind that I can’t think of right now.
There’s a really good set of Youtube videos of a talk by Patrick Goebel “ROS for the Rest of Us” that gives a good overview of ROS.
To get involved in ROS, it would be good to be familiar with Linux. (Ubuntu is the OS of choice for ROS.) and Python programming. There is a bit of C code there, but most of it gets ported, or ends up in Python wrappers. There is a ROSSERIAL library that has a LOT of good examples of how to get things done with an Arduino.
I’m not sure if an Arduino would be fast/powerful enough as a ROS controller. That is–NOT the main CPU. But rather the device that collects and publishes sensor information, and listens for commands from the main CPU to control the motors and servos.
My thoughts as a potential low end ROS robot would be a Rover 5, with the Dagu 4 channel motor controller, and a Spider controller, since these devices all go so well together and provide access to a lot of motor sense and odometry information.
** I know this is an old**
I know this is an old thread, but I’m keen for this to happen too. ROS has been successfully (more or less) installed on the RPi, and someone even got a Kinect ‘working’ with it. Speed is an issue, however, and the Kinect video is so slow as to be unusable (there may be a way to tune it up, but…).
This is my favourite RPi robotics project through:
http://www.aonsquared.co.uk/raspi_voice_control
It uses the Julius speech recognition program, however, rather than ROS.
