Navigating the ROS environment can be frightening and difficult for both seasoned and novice users. Our team has been hard at work creating new tools to assist ROS Developers in getting started with our robotic platforms and moving their research forward.
Robot Customizer
Our Robot Customizer ROS package provides an easy-to-use interface for adding sensors to your robot in the real world or in simulation. The robot customizer will allow users to edit real or simulated robots to add and remove sensors. The usage interface is made up of environment variables that can be modified to visibly add sensors to your robot’s model as well as enable the launch of the sensors’ corresponding drivers. Users can create their own sensor combinations and apply them to a robotic platform in both simulations and with real robots.
You can access the robot customizer tutorials here.
Simplified ROS Installation
We have provided a streamlined ROS installation so that users can install ROS and all of the drivers in just a few steps. Removing much of the set-up stress makes it simple to get a new robot up and running with basic capabilities quickly. This feature is available on robot computers and takes advantage of our customizations, such as network configuration.
The ISO image is available here and the installation scripts for single-board computers such as the Jetson or Raspberry Pi can be found here.
Improved Diagnostics and Functionality Testing
One of the most frustrating parts of a robotics project is if something doesn’t go as expected. Errors like this can stymie progress, regardless of whether it’s a hardware component, code, or piece of software. In order to assist researchers using our robotic platforms in getting back up and running, we have given enhanced diagnostics manuals as well as Dingo test scripts to confirm your robot is performing as intended.
Our enhanced diagnostics are intended to provide a rapid approach to analyze the GUI and provide information about the potential cause of the problem.
Our Dingo tests make use of the robot’s preloaded test scripts, which can be run to check robot functionality at the component and system levels. More information and instructions for installing the Dingo Test ROS package can be found here.