ros_gz_project_template

A template project integrating ROS 2 and Gazebo simulator. Edited by Diya Agarwal, Caltech '27 (Mechanical Engineering + Robotics) for Summer Undegraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) at Florida International University (FIU) in summer 2024. Implementing this template for simulating the Boston Dynamics Spot robot on a lunar surface to observe its movement in rough terrain and low gravity systems.

Included packages

• ros_gz_example_description - holds the sdf description of the simulated system and any other assets. Includes the description of the Spot robot.

• ros_gz_example_gazebo - holds gazebo specific code and configurations. Namely this is where systems end up. Includes the world(s) that the robot will interact with.

• ros_gz_example_application - holds ros2 specific code and configurations.

• ros_gz_example_bringup - holds launch files and high level utilities.

Install

For using the template with Gazebo Fortress switch to the fortress branch of this repository, otherwise use the default branch main for Gazebo Harmonic onwards.

Requirements

1. Choose a ROS and Gazebo combination https://gazebosim.org/docs/latest/ros_installation Note: If you're using a specific and unsupported Gazebo version with ROS 2, you might need to set the GZ_VERSION environment variable, for example:

   export GZ_VERSION=fortress

2. Install necessary tools

   sudo apt install python3-vcstool python3-colcon-common-extensions git wget

Use as template

Directly Use this template and create your project repository on Github.

Or start by creating a workspace and cloning the template repository:

mkdir -p ~/template_ws/src
cd ~/template_ws/src
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gazebosim/ros_gz_project_template/main/template_workspace.yaml
vcs import < template_workspace.yaml

Usage

1. Install dependencies

   cd ~/template_ws
   source /opt/ros/<ROS_DISTRO>/setup.bash
   sudo rosdep init
   rosdep update
   rosdep install --from-paths src --ignore-src -r -i -y --rosdistro <ROS_DISTRO>

2. Build the project

   colcon build --cmake-args -DBUILD_TESTING=ON

3. Source the workspace

   . ~/template_ws/install/setup.sh

4. Launch the simulation

   ros2 launch ros_gz_example_bringup diff_drive.launch.py

For a more detailed guide on using this template see documentation.