Launch Files

These are .launch files that can be run using roslaunch:

roslaunch rktl_control <launch file>

ball.launch

This launches a mean_odom_filter node to start the ball tracking with parameters supplied by rktl_control/config/mean_odom_filter.yaml.

Nodes

  • ball/mean_odom_filter: mean_odom_filter node from the rktl_control package. Parameters supplied by rktl_control/config/mean_odom_filter.yaml.

car.launch

This launches the filter (either a particle filter or a rolling average) to track the car, as well as the controller needed to control it. The type of filter can be changed by the use_particle_filter argument. Parameters are provided by rktl_control/config/particle_odom_filter.yaml or rktl_control/config/mean_odom_filter.yaml (depending on the filter chosen) and rktl_control/config/controller.yaml.

Launch Arguments

  • car_name (default: car0): Name of the car to launch the agent for.

  • use_particle_filter (default: true): If true, a particle filter is used. Otherwise, a rolling average is used.

Nodes

  • mean_odom_filter: mean_odom_filter node from the rktl_control package. Only run if use_particle_filter is set to false. Parameters supplied by rktl_control/config/mean_odom_filter.yaml.

  • particle_odom_filter: particle_odom_filter node from the rktl_control package. Only run if use_particle_filter is set to true (the default). Parameters supplied by rktl_control/config/particle_odom_filter.yaml.

  • controller: controller node from the rktl_control package. Parameters supplied by rktl_control/config/controller.yaml.

hardware_interface.launch

This takes a rktl_msgs/ControlEffort message and sends it to a physical car. The efforts in the message range from -1.0 to +1.0 corresponding to full reverse for full forward motor speed, or full left or full right steering angle respectively. Technically, you can also feed in values with an absolute value greater than 1.0. This is useful for having higher actuator saturation limits in the controller, or perhaps implementing a “boost” for human controlled cars.

Physically, the interface code runs on a Teensy 3.2 microcontroller. The microcontroller is connected to a computer via USB, and code running on the computer allows it to pull control effort messages from the ROS network. The microcontroller is also connected to FrSky XJT radio transmitter, which allows it to send these controls to the car.

Note that in order for this node to work, it need to be run on a Linux computer with that the docker container needs to be run with the --privileged option.

Nodes

  • hardware_interface: serial_node.py node from the rosserial_arduino package. This node allows the firmware on a connected Teensy to interface with the rest of the ROS network. Parameters, including the serial port used by the Teensy, are supplied by rktl_control/config/hardware_interface.yaml.

keyboard_control.launch

This launches a keyboard_interface node to allow for controlling the car using the keyboard.

Nodes

  • cars/{car_name}/keyboard_interface: keyboard_interface node from the rktl_control package. The namespace of this node is affected by the car_name parameter to ensure that the node interacts with the correct topics.

Parameters

  • car_name (default: car0): Name of the car to control with the keyboard interface.

xbox_control.launch

This launches a xbox_interface node and all related nodes to allow for controlling the car using an xbox controller.

Nodes

  • cars/{car_name}/joy_node: joy_node node from the joy package. This node publishes the current state of the joystick to be used by the xbox_interface node. The namespace of this node is affected by the car_name parameter to ensure that the node interacts with the correct topics.

  • cars/{car_name}/xbox_interface: xbox_interface node from the rktl_control package. The namespace of this node is affected by the car_name parameter to ensure that the node interacts with the correct topics.

  • cars/{car_name}/controller_delay: topic_delay node from the rktl_control package. This adds delay to the output of the joy_node topic The namespace of this node is affected by the car_name parameter to ensure that the node interacts with the correct topics.

  • cars/{car_name}/controller_delay_mux: mux node from the topic_tools package. This node subscribes to the raw joystick and delayed joystick topics and republishes it onto a combined topic. The namespace of this node is affected by the car_name parameter to ensure that the node interacts with the correct topics.

Parameters

  • device (default: /dev/input/js0): Device file of the joystick.

  • car_name (default: car0): Name of the car to control with the keyboard interface.

  • delay (default: 0.1): Amount of simulated delay to add to the controller input