Project 5: Home Service Robot

In this project, a mobile robot is asked to navigate to a pick-up zone for picking up a green cube. After that, it moves while carrying the cube to the drop-off zone position and drops the cube there.

How it works

The mobile robot first drives around and scan the house using laser for generating a static map about this place. Having the map, it uses odometry and laser data to localize itself with adaptive monte carlo localization (AMCL). Upon receiving a navigation goal, it plans forward the trajectory using Dijkstra's algorithm and navigate to the goal.

Description

The project consists of the following parts:

1. A Gazebo world and a mobile robot.
2. ROS packages: map_server, amcl, move_base, slam-gmapping and teleop_twist_keyboard.

Prerequisites

1. ROS (Melodic or Kinetic), Gazebo on Linux
2. CMake & g++/gcc, C++11
3. Install xterm sudo apt-get install xterm
4. Python with pip sudo apt-get install python-pip
5. Install some dependencies

$ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade -y
$ sudo apt-get install ros-${ROS_DISTRO}-map-server
$ sudo apt-get install ros-${ROS_DISTRO}-amcl
$ sudo apt-get install ros-${ROS_DISTRO}-move-base
$ sudo apt-get install ros-${ROS_DISTRO}-slam-gmapping
$ pip install rospkg

Build and Launch

1. Clone the project and initialize a catkin workspace

$ mkdir catkin_ws && cd catkin_ws
$ git clone https://github.com/huuanhhuynguyen/RoboND-Home-Service-Robot.git
$ mv RoboND-Home-Service-Robot src
$ cd src && catkin_init_workspace

2. Navigate back to the catkin_wsfolder and build the project

$ cd ..
$ catkin_make

3. Run available scripts to launch

$ source devel/setup.bash
$ chmod u+x ./src/scripts/home_service.sh
$ ./src/scripts/home_service.sh

Note: To redraw the map, close all ros terminals and re-run the script test_slam.sh instead. While all terminal is open, run rosrun map_server map_saver -f my_map. Replace the map/SimpleMap files with the newly created my_map.

Final Words

This project is the final project of Udacity Robotics Software Engineer Nanodegree, in which the following knowledge are combined:

• Apply and fine tune the AMCL algorithm.
• Apply and fine tune cost map and trajectory planner of move_base ROS package.
• Write ROS nodes with publishers and subscribers