[ros-users] Pioneer 3dx in ROS

[Dan Lazewatsky]

Hi all -
I know this has been discussed here a bit, but not in much detail.
We have a Pioneer3dx that we'd like to get up and running again. I 
downloaded and compiled the p2os package which seems to be able to 
successfully connect and communicate with the robot using a serial to 
USB adapter. However, I'm having trouble getting the motors to do 
anything sensible. The robot's motor self-test looks like it works fine, 
but sending cmd_vel, all I can get is extremely slow, jerky movement 
forward or backwards (no turning). I enabled the motors with:

rostopic pub cmd_motor_state -1 p2os/MotorState 1 (I also tried 4 
instead of 1 which was mentioned in a previous discussion)

This feels like a communication problem between the motor commands p2os 
is sending and the robot, but I don't know what's going on. Any ideas?

Thanks,
-Dan