Aldebaran Nao

Nao is a commercially available humanoid robot built by Aldebaran. The ROS driver was originally developed by Freiburg's Humanoid Robots Lab and Armin Hornung. It essentially wraps the needed parts of Aldebaran's NaoQI API (versions 1.14 and 2.1) and makes it available in ROS. It also provides a complete robot model (URDF).

Robots using ROS: Aldebaran Nao

Robots using ROS: Uni Freiburg's "Osiris" Nao

Contents

Aldebaran Nao

Community

There is an official SIG for NaoQI and Aldebaran's robots at https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/ros-sig-aldebaran. Please subscribe to it to get the latest news !

Tutorials

A complete list of tutorials can be found under tutorials. This includes the installation, startup and further advanced instructions how to connect ROS with your NAO.

Start all robot nodes: nao_bringup
See getting started for a walk-through guide to installing ROS, NAOqi, and rviz (may be outdated by now).

Library Overview

The core functionality is implemented in the nao_robot stack (can be installed on the robot or on a remote PC), extended with further functionality in nao_extras (should be installed on a remote PC).

sudo apt-get install ros-.*-nao-robot
sudo apt-get install ros-.*-nao-extras

For an outline of the libraries included, please see the tables below.

Basic Configuration

Capability	ROS package/stack
Robot-specific Messages and Services	naoqi_bridge_msgs
Robot model (URDF)	nao_description
Robot meshes	nao_meshes

Hardware Drivers and Simulation

Component	ROS package/stack
Actuator drivers	naoqi_driver naoqi driver C++
	naoqi_driver_py naoqi driver Python
Basic sensor drivers	naoqi_driver naoqi driver C++
	naoqi_driver_py naoqi driver Python
Sensor drivers	naoqi_sensors_py
Robot control	nao_dcm_bringup

High-Level Capabilities

Component	ROS package/stack
Teleop	nao_teleop
Footstep planning	footstep_planner
Execute / manage body poses	naoqi_pose
Follow 2D path / walk to target	nao_path_follower
Diagnostics / Visualization	naoqi_dashboard
Interaction	nao_interaction
Planning / MoveIt!	nao_moveit_config

And more at nao_extras.

Simulation

You have the following options for simulating NAO:

You can use a simulated Nao in Webots and program it from ROS, from the Webots API or connect the driver to NaoQI on your local machine using naoqisim.
You can use a simulated Nao in Gazebo using plain ros_control architecture and no NaoQI features.
You can use a simulated Nao in Gazebo and connect the driver to NaoQI on your local machine.