Note that these instructions assume you followed the steps in rpi setup.
In a sourced terminal (source /opt/ros/melodic/setup.bash && source ~/osr_ws/devel/setup.bash), run
roslaunch osr_bringup osr.launch
to run the rover.
Any errors or warnings will be displayed there in case something went wrong. If you're using the Xbox wireless controller,
command the rover by holding the left back button (LB) down and moving the joysticks. You can boost as described in
the RPi setup by holding down the right back button (RB) instead. If this isn't working for you,
rostopic echo /joy, press buttons, and adjust bringup.launch to point to the corresponding buttons and axes. If you have questions, please ask on our Slack group, in the #troubleshooting channel.
If you want the code to calculate and publish wheel odometry, launch with the argument enable_odometry:=true.
Odometry is used for localization and SLAM.
If you want to customize your osr.launch file, make a copy of it in the same directory (osr-rover-code/ROS/osr_bringup/launch/) and name it osr_mod.launch. The OSR launch script will automatically find it.
This is useful, for example, when you don't have the LED screen. In that case you would just remove the <node name="led_screen" pkg="led_screen" type="arduino_comm.py"/> line in osr_mod.launch.
Starting scripts on boot using ROS can be a little more difficult than starting scripts on boot normally from the Raspberry Pi because of the default permission settings on the RPi and the fact that that ROS cannot be ran as the root user. The way that we will starting our rover code automatically on boot is to create a service that starts our roslaunch script, and then automatically run that service on boot of the robot. Further information on system service scripts running at boot.
There are two scripts in the ”init_scripts” folder. The first is the bash file that runs the roslaunch file, and the other creates a system service to start that bash script. Open up a terminal on the raspberry Pi and execute the following commands.
cd ~/osr_ws/src/osr-rover-code/init_scripts
# use symbolic links so we capture updates to these files in the service
ln -s $(pwd)/launch_osr.sh ~/launch_osr.sh
ln -s $(pwd)/osr_paths.sh ~/osr_paths.sh
sudo cp osr_startup.service /etc/systemd/system/osr_startup.service
sudo chmod 644 /etc/systemd/system/osr_startup.service
Your osr startup service is now installed on the Pi and ready to be used. The following are some commands related to managing this service which you might find useful:
| Description | Command |
|---|---|
| Start service | sudo systemctl start osr startup.service |
| Stop service | sudo systemctl stop osr startup.service |
| Enable service (runs on boot of RPi) | sudo systemctl enable osr startup.service |
| Disable service (doesn’t run on boot of RPi) | sudo systemctl disable osr startup.service |
| Check status of service | sudo systemctl status osr startup.service |
| View live service list | sudo journalctl -f |
Note: We do not recommend enabling the service until you have verified that everything on your robot runs successfully manually. Once you enable the service, as soon as you power on the RPi it will try and run everything. This could cause issues if everything has not yet been fully tested and verified. Additionally, if you are doing development of your own software for the robot we suggest disabling the service and doing manual launch of the scripts during testing phases. This will help you more easily debug any issues with your code.
Once you have fully tested the robot and made sure that everything is running correctly by starting the rover code manually
via roslaunch osr bringup osr.launch, enable the startup service on the robot with the command below:
sudo systemctl enable osr_startup.service
At this point, your rover should be fully functional and automatically run whenever you boot it up! Congratulations and happy roving!!