In the previous chapter, we have discussed about robotic vision using ROS. In this chapter, we can see discuss how to build an autonomous mobile robot hardware with differential drive configuration and how to interface it into ROS. We will see how to configure ROS Navigation stack for this robot and perform SLAM and AMCL to move the robot autonomously. This chapter aims to give you an idea
about building a custom mobile robot and interfacing it on ROS.
You will see the following topics in this chapter:
- Introduction to Chefbot: a DIY autonomous mobile robot
- Flashing Chefbot firmware using Energia IDE
- Discussing Chefbot interface package in ROS
- Developing base controller and odometry node for Chefbot in ROS
- Configuring Navigation stack for Chefbot
- Understanding AMCL
- Understanding RViz for working with Navigation stack
- Obstacle avoidance using Navigation stack
- Working with Chefbot simulation
- Sending a goal to the Navigation stack from a ROS node
The first topic we are going to discuss in this chapter is how to build a DIY (Do It Yourself) autonomous mobile robot, developing its firmware, and interface it to ROS Navigation stack. The robot called Chefbot was built as a part of my first book called Learning Robotics using Python for PACKT (http://learn-robotics.com). This section discusses step by step procedure to build this robot and its interfacing to ROS.
In this chapter, we will cover abstract information about this robot hardware and we will learn more about configuring ROS Navigation stack and its fine tuning for performing autonomous navigation using SLAM and AMCL. In this chapter, we will see how to interface a real differential drive robot hardware to navigation package.