Recently, Mathworks released a new toolbox for Matlab. This is exciting for a number of reasons: it includes everything from data analysis to coordination of multiple robots. In today’s post, we explore using this Robotics System Toolbox to connect to both real and virtual Jackal robots.
The toolbox has made a number of improvements since the “beta” version that we wrote a tutorial on a while ago. Matlab now supports services, parameters, analyzing rosbag data, and has a very robust series of tutorials. They even support generating code in Matlab Simulink, and then having it run on a ROS robot, with no extra downloads needed. This should make development of control algorithms faster for robots, and enable fairly detailed testing outside of ROS.
The following video looks at running a Jackal in circles, in both real and virtual space. It also compares a simple obstacle avoidance program, using lidar, that wanders around the environment.
To run the obstacle avoidance sample on a Jackal, ensure that the Matlab Robotics System Toolbox is installed, and download this file: Jackal_New.m
Change the first IP address to your Jackal (real or simulated) and the second to your own computer (the one running Matlab)
If you are ready to try analyzing bag data, download our sample file from the run shown in the video, and plot the laser data.
laserAvoid_Real.bag , scan_plot.m
Link to the toolbox:
http://www.mathworks.com/products/robotics/
Looking for other Clearpath tutorials? Visit support.clearpathrobotics.com/.
The above link … http://www.support.clearpathrobotics.com … appears to be broken?!
Mohan,
Thanks for reporting this! It’s now been fixed.
Best,
Rachel
I think it continues to be broken!
Thank you Rachel! It works now!!
When I try to run a different robot (a simulated “Turtlebot” in Gazebo) in a circle, similar to what is shown in this video demonstration, the Turtlebot quickly looses control and starts to spin in place! I am wondering whether it has something to do with the publishing rate of commands; however, the MATLAB ‘send’ command does not appear to have such an option.
I notice that there is a link for downloading the “Jackal_New.m” file on your website. Could I get a copy of the program that runs the Jackal in a circle? Thanks!