Hunter Platform ROS 2 Packages

This repository contains three ROS 2 packages designed for the Hunter platform: hunter_pltf_bringup, hunter_pltf_description, and hunter_pltf_gazebo. These packages facilitate bringing up the robot, providing its description, and simulating it in Gazebo.

Table of Contents

• Overview
• Package Details
  • 1. hunter_pltf_bringup
  • 2. hunter_pltf_description
  • 3. hunter_pltf_gazebo
• Getting Started
• Usage
• License

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Overview

This repository provides essential tools for working with the Hunter platform, enabling:

• Robot bring-up with ROS 2.
• Viewing and managing the robot's description.
• Simulating the robot in Gazebo with physics and environment interactions.

These packages use the ROS 2 launch system to manage nodes and configurations. This repository is dependent of hunter_robot repository.

Package Details

1. hunter_pltf_bringup

Description: This package is responsible for bringing up the Hunter platform, including controllers and robot state publishers.

Features:

• Declares launch arguments for various configurations, such as simulation time, PID gains, and RViz.
• Includes robot description and controllers.
• Uses nodes like controller_manager and robot_state_publisher.

Key Launch Arguments:

• gui: Launch RViz2 GUI (default: true)
• use_mock_hardware: Use mock hardware (default: true)
• kp_v, kd_v: Linear velocity PID gains (default: 40.0, 0.1)
• kp_w, kd_w: Angular velocity PID gains (default: 35.0, 0.1)

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2. hunter_pltf_description

Description: Provides the URDF description of the Hunter platform using xacro files.

Features:

• Parses the URDF from hunter_pltf.urdf.xacro.
• Publishes the robot state with robot_state_publisher.
• Optionally launches RViz and Joint State Publisher GUI.

Key Launch Arguments:

• use_sim_time: Use simulation time (default: false)
• gui: Launch RViz2 and Joint State Publisher GUI (default: true)

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3. hunter_pltf_gazebo

Description: Enables simulation of the Hunter platform in Gazebo.

Features:

• Integrates with Gazebo for robot simulation.
• Loads the robot description and spawns the entity in Gazebo.
• Supports custom world files and simulation time.
• Includes controllers such as joint_state_broadcaster and ackermann_like_controller.

Key Launch Arguments:

• use_sim_time: Use simulation time (default: true)
• world_path: Path to the Gazebo world file (default: empty_world.world)
• x_pose, y_pose, roll, pitch, yaw: Initial robot pose in Gazebo (default: 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.45)

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Getting Started

Prerequisites

• ROS 2 Humble (or compatible version)
• Gazebo (for simulation)
• Python 3.8 or higher

Installation

1. Clone this repository into your ROS 2 workspace:

   cd ~/ros2_ws/src
   https://github.com/LCAS/hunter_platform.git

2. Install dependencies:

   rosdep update
   rosdep install --from-paths . --ignore-src -r -y

3. Build the workspace:

   cd ~/ros2_ws
   colcon build
   source install/setup.bash

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Usage

Launch Robot Bringup

To bring up the Hunter platform:

ros2 launch hunter_pltf_bringup hunter_pltf_bringup.launch.py

Launch Robot Description

To view the robot's description in RViz:

ros2 launch hunter_pltf_description pltf_rsp.launch.py gui:=true

Simulate in Gazebo

To simulate the robot in Gazebo:

ros2 launch hunter_pltf_gazebo launch_sim.launch.py

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License

This repository is licensed under the Apache License.

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Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please fork the repository and submit a pull request.

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For any issues or questions, please open an issue on the repository.