[ros-users] remote control (kbd / joystick / etc.) (brice rebsamen)

Advait Jain advait at cc.gatech.edu
Fri May 27 17:45:13 UTC 2011


Hi Ken,

I can see these top-level wiki pages being really useful.

How does one decide that a particular subject has the critical mass to
warrant a top-level page?

For example, I can imagine a page on actuators (similar to what I
Heart Robotics and others have done for Sensors).

This could include ROS packages to control servos, pan tilt units etc., such as
http://www.ros.org/wiki/ptu46
http://www.ros.org/wiki/amtec
http://www.ros.org/wiki/robotis
http://www.ros.org/wiki/ax12_controller_core


Advait


On Fri, May 27, 2011 at 1:20 PM, Ken Conley <kwc at willowgarage.com> wrote:
> Hi Chad,
>
> These are good points.  I encourage you to look as several of the new
> top-level pages the community has added to the wiki in the past year
> and suggest specific ways/areas they could be improved further.  These
> pages include:
>
> Library/functionalities:
> http://www.ros.org/wiki/APIs
>
> Sensors:
> http://www.ros.org/wiki/Sensors
>
> Robot-specific landing pages:
> http://www.ros.org/wiki/Robots
>
> Tools:
> http://www.ros.org/wiki/Tools
>
> It's really the robot-specific landing pages I'm most excited about
> and think the community can contribute the most to.  I'm hoping that
> the pages like:
>
> http://www.ros.org/wiki/Robots/NXT
>
> will be a place where NXT users can start answering more specific "how
> do I do X with my robot" questions.
>
> One of the reasons we are focused on TurtleBot is it is simply too
> difficult to provide a generic "here are cool libraries" without
> understanding what hardware the person is using, i.e. "navigation" has
> a very different meaning if I have a Create, AscTec quadrotor, or
> autonomous car.
>
> cheers,
> Ken
>
>
> On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 12:41 PM, Jenkins, Odest Chadwicke
> <odest_jenkins at brown.edu> wrote:
>> Hi Ken,
>>
>> I think you make a very good point about developing a teleop_mobile
>> stack.  That would certainly be a welcomed contribution.  I also agree
>> that asking Willow to take this on is not the best use of time and
>> effort.
>>
>> A larger point I am making is that we are starting to see more
>> reinvention and refragmentation among the efforts of the ROS
>> community.  I would attribute this circumstance to the lack of a
>> global picture of ROS that people (new and established) in ROS can
>> understand.  We often have to climb up the learning curve by scouring
>> the more detail-oriented content of the wiki and various repositories.
>>  This could be a dealbreaker for many types of people we would like to
>> bring into the ROS community: app-level developers, people who design
>> systems with usability and value in mind, etc.
>>
>> I think the answer to Brice's question (and similar questions) should
>> be more obvious.  By an order of magnitude, ROS has been a great
>> contribution to robotics, as an applications-layer protocol, message
>> structure, and development environment.  However, ROS is still very
>> far from enabling robots to provide value for real users and app
>> developers.  More guidance from the ROS leadership as well as
>> discussion with the current ROS community would help in broadening the
>> ROS community in the future.
>>
>> (Brice, apologies for the threadjacking)
>>
>> -Chad
>>
>> On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 4:31 PM, Ken Conley <kwc at willowgarage.com> wrote:
>>> If someone was willing to coordinate/maintain a "teleop_mobile" stack,
>>> we would happily accept/anoint it.  As Brian notes, the difficulty is
>>> in ensuring that such a 'general' teleoperation package generically
>>> controls a variety of robots.  We would not be able to do such a stack
>>> ourselves (at least for Electric) as our post-ICRA todo list is a bit
>>> too much right now.
>>>
>>> It sounds like there are (at least) two good starting points for
>>> packages to include.  For keyboard, the stack that Chad mentions:
>>>
>>> http://www.ros.org/wiki/teleop_twist_keyboard
>>>
>>> And for joystick, we have our teleoperation package we use with the TurtleBot:
>>>
>>> http://www.ros.org/wiki/turtlebot_teleop
>>>
>>> The joystick case is a bit more difficult as you also have to
>>> parameterize a bit on the joystick.
>>>
>>> Our expectation for a maintainer would be to coordinate the community
>>> to get good documentation in place, and also coordinate with the
>>> community to test across multiple robot bases.
>>>
>>>  - Ken
>>>
>>> On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 9:17 AM, Jenkins, Odest Chadwicke
>>> <odest_jenkins at brown.edu> wrote:
>>>> Hi Brice,
>>>>
>>>> I believe you are correct in that base movement control has been
>>>> reinvented several times over in ROS.  We wrote our own a while back,
>>>> but there are probably other quality movement controllers across the
>>>> ROS space:
>>>>
>>>>  http://www.ros.org/wiki/teleop_twist_keyboard
>>>>
>>>> teleop_twist_keyboard was based on the old playerjoy utility from
>>>> Player, which includes a stop command and has limited handling of key
>>>> press/release events.  We often use teleop_twist_keyboard for the
>>>> Create, AR.Drone, and PR2 (as in the following video):
>>>>
>>>>  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-9sDNnGtIs
>>>>
>>>> I think your post is great reminder that the ROS community could
>>>> benefit from a clearer organization of packages, messages, and
>>>> functionality in ROS.  Such a clear organization does not seem likely
>>>> to happen organically without some guidance from the ROS leadership.
>>>>
>>>> -Chad
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> ros-users mailing list
>>>> ros-users at code.ros.org
>>>> https://code.ros.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-users
>>>>
>>>
>>
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