[ros-users] [Discourse.ros.org] [ROS Projects] Tractobots, my attempts at field robots

[Kyler Laird]

I've been discussing my field robot projects on Emlid's forum (https://community.emlid.com/t/tractor-installation-advice-welcome/2126/77) because I initially considered basing my projects on a Navio+.  I didn't end up using Emlid's products so it's been a little strange to keep posting there.  This looks like a more appropriate place for me.

I am firmly in ROS these days but I don't use it well.  I hope some discussion here might help me standardize and take better advantage of ROS components.

Lots of historic information is in the Emlid forum.  I'll be happy to elaborate on it here but for now, I'll just start posting what I'm currently doing.

It's high time for me to do some vertical tillage with Tractobot02 but I've been working on my new little planter tractor (Tractobot03).  I worked a bit in Tractobot02 yesterday.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrazPHtJ89M

I originally set up Tractobot02 using a monolithic Python script.  It worked great, even at high speeds (19 MPH).  Then I partially converted it to ROS and sent it out to pull a grain cart for harvest and didn't care much that it couldn't drive a straight line well.

I tried to get it working last weekend and found it weaving all over.  Yesterday I finally decided to rip out my PID code and use the ROS PID.  I did it mostly because I wanted to reconfigure it (rqt) on the fly but I also suspected some windup issues so I thought I might as well switch to the ROS PID before investing more effort in it.

The ROS PID solved the problem!  It was a wonderful change.  I so appreciate being able to use code that has gone through such rigorous development.  Thank you ROS community!

There's a lot I want to do beyond the dumb functionality I have now.  I am confident that working with ROS is the best way to ensure that I make progress.






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