Spot ROS Driver Usage

Verify the URDF

To verify that the spot_viz and spot_description packages are sourced properly, you can run

roslaunch spot_viz view_model.launch

This will load RVIZ with the robot description visible. It should also show any additions you may have added to the robot’s URDF

Configure Your Networking

There are multiple ways that you can setup networking on your ROS computer. This guide will cover two different common ways to do this

/etc/network/interfaces

The first way is by editing /etc/network/interfaces. Below is a section that will create a bridge between all of your network ports and assign a static address of 192.168.131.1. This is a common setup for Clearpath robots. Ensure to put your ROS computer into the same subnet that you set for the Spot platform.

auto br0

iface br0 inet static
  bridge_ports regex (eth.*)|(en.*)
  address 192.168.131.1
  netmask 255.255.255.0
  bridge_maxwait 0

Network Manager

If you are using Ubuntu and it has a desktop environment, it will likely have Network Manager installed. To create a new network connection, click the networking icon in the top right if your screen and choose Edit Connections.

You will see all of the other network connections you’ve setup in the past. Click Add on the right to create a new network connection for the robot.

Select Ethernet as the connection type since we are connecting directly to the platform.

Give the connection a name.

Set the conneciton method to Manual. This will give it a static address.

Under the IPV4 config, choose a static address for the ROS computer. Ensure to put your ROS computer into the same subnet that you set for the Spot platform.

Running the Driver

roslaunch spot_driver driver.launch

When launching, there are some options you may need to configure for your setup. They are:

Argument	Default	Description
username	dummyusername	The username of the Spot user to authenticate using
password	dummypassword	The password of the Spot user to authenticate using
hostname	192.168.131.3	The IP address of the Spot robot

View the Robot

Once the robot is connected, you should be able to visualize its odometry, joint positions, camera streams, etc. using RVIZ. To view these streams, run

roslaunch spot_viz view_robot.launch

Remember that you will need to source your workspace before running this command.

Once RVIZ is loaded, you should see something similar to this.

Taking Control of the Robot

To control Spot, you need to maintain control of the eStop and body lease, power on the drive motors, and command the robot to stand.

Body and eStop Control

A body lease gives the holder the ability to command the spot to make actions in the world. The eStop gives the robot a way to guarantee that the commanding system is maintaining contact with the robot. There are two ways to claim a body lease and eStop using this driver.

1. Automatically when the driver starts by enabling the auto_claim variable

2. By calling the claim service after the driver is started

You cannot claim a lease on the robot if something else already has a lease. This is for security reasons. Check the status/leases topic for information on current leases.

Enable Motor Power

Motor power needs to be enabled once you have a Lease on the body. This can be done in two ways:

1. Automatically when the driver starts by enabling the auto_power_on variable

2. By calling the power_on service after the driver is started

Stand the Robot Up

Once the motors are powered, stand the robot up so it is able to move through the world. This can be done in two ways:

1. Automatically when the driver starts by enabling the auto_stand variable

2. By calling the stand service after the driver is started

Controling the Velocity

Warning

Spot will attempt to avoid any obstacles it detects with its cameras, but no vision or actuation system is perfect. Make sure to only move the robot in a safe area and in a controlled manner.

ROS Topics

To control Spot, you can send a Twist ROS message to command a velocity. To test this, open a new terminal and source your ROS installation. Then, run this command in your terminal

rostopic pub /spot/cmd_vel geometry_msgs/Twist "linear:
  x: 0.0
  y: 0.0
  z: 0.0
angular:
  x: 0.0
  y: 0.0
  z: 0.3" -r 10

That command will have spot rotate on the spot at 0.3 radians/second. Note the -r at the end of the command. That has ROS resend the message over again. If you don’t resend the message, the driver will assume a timeout and stop commanding motion of the robot.

Interactive Marker

Inside of RVIZ, grab the red arrow that is around Spot’s body and pull it forward or backwards to have Spot walk. If you rotate the blue circle around the body, Spot will turn on the spot. This is a very simple, but inaccurate to move Spot

Controling the Body

The angle of the body relative to the feet is also controllable through a ROS topic, but there is no interactive marker yet.

To control the body position through a terminal, send the following command:

rostopic pub /spot/body_pose geometry_msgs/Pose "position:
  x: 0.0
  y: 0.0
  z: 0.0
orientation:
  x: 0.0
  y: 0.0
  z: 0.0
  w: 1.0"

Note that the -r is not needed for this command. This sets the position the body should be in until changed.

Cameras and Depth Clouds

Spot is equipped 5 RGB and depth-sensing cameras: 2 on the front, one on each side, and one in the rear. All of these cameras publish at approximately 10Hz. The cameras are grayscale.

Note that the front cameras are mounted sideways, so they have a narrower horizontal FoV, but a larger vertical one. The camera data likewise rotated anticlockwise by 90 degrees.

The frontleft camera and depth topics are from the camera physically located on the front-left of the robot. This camera is pointed to the robot’s right, so the depth cloud will appear in front of the robot’s right shoulder:

Similarly the frontright camera and depth topics are from the camera physically located on the front-right of the robot. This camera points to the robot’s left, so the depth cloud will appear in front of the robot’s left shoulder:

The complete list of depth and camera topics is below:

Topic	Type	Comments
camera/frontleft/camera/image	Image	Data from the front-left camera, which points to the right. Image is rotated 90 degrees anticlockwise.
camera/frontright/camera/image	Image	Data from the front-right camera, which points to the left. Image is rotated 90 degrees anticlockwise.
camera/left/camera/image	Image
camera/right/camera/image	Image
camera/back/camera/image	Image
depth/frontleft/camera/image	Image	Data from the front-left camera, which points to the right.
depth/frontright/camera/image	Image	Data from the front-right camera, which points to the left.
depth/left/camera/image	Image
depth/right/camera/image	Image
depth/back/camera/image	Image

Monitoring the Platform

Topic	Type	Description
status/metrics	Metrics	General metrics for the system like distance walked
status/leases	LeaseArray	A list of what leases are held on the system
odometry/twist	TwistWithCovarianceStamped	The estimated ofometry of the platform
status/feet	FootStateArray	The status and position of each foot
status/estop	EStopStateArray	The status of the eStop system
status/wifi	WiFiState	Status of the wifi system
status/power_state	PowerState	General power information
status/battery_states	BatteryStateArray	Information for the battery and all cells in the system
status/behavior_faults	BehaviorFaultState	A listing of behavior faults in the system
status/system_faults	SystemFaultState	A listing of system faults in the system
status/feedback	Feedback	Feedback from the Spot robot

Troubleshooting

These instructions are a minimum subset of instructions to get this driver working and do not contain all necessary debugging steps. Please refer to the Spot SDK Quickstart for more detailed debugging steps.