Only released in EOL distros:   hydro indigo jade kinetic

Introduction

This package contains a set of nodes that can be used to run visual servoing demonstrations on a real Pioneer P-3DX mobile robot equipped with a camera. These nodes illustrate the usage of vision_visp stack; especially visp_auto_tracker for the tracking of the target, and visp usage in order to implement a position based visual servoing.

Two demonstrations are provided:

• The camera is rigidly fixed in front of the Pioneer
• The camera is mounted on a PT-head fixed in front of the Pioneer

If you don't have a real Pioneer under the hand, it is also possible to use this stack on a simulated Pioneer robot. To this end you may use the vrep_ros_plugin stack and follow the tutorial.

Requested material

This package was used with the following materials:

• Pioneer P3-DX mobile robot

• Logitec wireless F710 gamepad to tele operate the robot

• A firewire camera. We use an Allied Pike F-032C with a 4.2mm lens, but any other camera can be used.

Optional material:

• A Biclops PT head.

Installation

Install ROS and create a catkin workspace

• mkdir -p ~/catkin_ws/src
  cd ~/catkin_ws/src
  catkin_init_workspace
  cd ~/catkin_ws
  catkin_make

Bring the source

• cd ~/catkin_ws/src

Get rosaria stack that allows to control a real Pioneer robot

• git clone https://github.com/amor-ros-pkg/rosaria.git (master branch)

Get demo_pioneer stack that does the visual servoing

• git clone https://github.com/lagadic/demo_pioneer.git (master branch)

Install dependencies

• source ~/catkin_ws/devel/setup.bash
  rosdep update
  rosdep install rosaria
  rosdep install demo_pioneer

Build the source

• cd ~/catkin_ws
  catkin_make -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release --pkg rosaria
  catkin_make -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release --pkg demo_pioneer

Usage

Test first pioneer tele operation from gamepad

Check if you have the read/write rights in /dev/ttyUSB0. If not

• sudo chmod a+rw /dev/ttyUSB0

or even better edit '/etc/udev/rules.d/51-local.rules' and add the following line:

• KERNEL=="ttyUSB*", MODE="0666"

First check if the Pioneer can be tele operated

• source ~/catkin_ws/devel/setup.bash
  roslaunch demo_pioneer pioneer-teleop.launch

On the gamepad, select the XInput interface mode. This can be done by sliding the a switch on the side of the gamepad to the position marked "X".

Once done, push "left or right button trigger" to wake the gamepad driver and then use the "right mini stick" to move the robot.

Start the visual servoing demo on the Pioneer

Then start the demo with a real Pioneer robot using:

• source ~/catkin_ws/devel/setup.bash
  roslaunch demo_pioneer demo-visual-servo-pioneer.launch

This will open a windows name "visp_auto_tracker debug display" that shows the images provided by the camera. Present the target available here in front of the camera. It should be detected automatically. Once detected, on the gamepad push "left or right button trigger" to apply the visual servo command to the robot. As long as one of these two buttons are pressed, the command applied to the robot is the one that comes from the visual servoing node. If you release the button, the robot stops moving. You can then move it with the "right mini stick".

Known issues

Missing pattern.wrl file

With some old releases of visp_auto_tracker installed with rosdep you may encounter the following issue:

• process[demo_pioneer_visual_servo_pioneer_node-4]: started with pid [19722]
  terminate called after throwing an instance of 'resource_retriever::Exception'
    what():  Error retrieving file [file:///opt/ros/hydro/share/visp_auto_tracker/models/pattern.wrl]: Couldn't open file /opt/ros/hydro/share/visp_auto_tracker/models/pattern.wrl

The fix consists in copying visp_auto_tracker/models folder in the folder where visp_auto_tracker node was installed by using:

• cd /tmp
  git clone https://github.com/lagadic/vision_visp.git
  roscd visp_auto_tracker
  sudo cp -p -r /tmp/vision_visp/visp_auto_tracker/models .