Sensor transforms on the Pioneer LX

Question

I'm currently working on the navigation of a Pioneer LX robot, and I wish to migrate from the ARNL system to ROSARIA and the ROS navigation stack. However, I'm relatively new to the ROS world and a bit overwhelmed by the information available, so I wish to clarify some things in order to avoid starting unnecessary tasks and/or research. My goal is to implement the navigation stack as a replacement for ARNL to achieve a system that is not reliant on legacy code from MobileRobots.

This means I have to implement localization and autonomous navigation system. The figure at move_base tells me that I have to provide nodes from sensor transformations, odometry source etc. Since ROSARIA publishes sensor and odometry messages, I assume I only have to implement the sensor transformation node and optionally amcl.

Question: Are there sensor transforms available for the Pioneer LX already or do I have to write them my self?

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Originally posted by fendrbud on ROS Answers with karma: 48 on 2019-10-15

Post score: 0

Answer 1

The figure at move_base tells me that I have to provide nodes from sensor transformations, odometry source etc. Since ROSARIA publishes sensor and odometry messages, I assume I only have to implement the sensor transformation node and optionally amcl.

Using a node (with a Broadcaster) is only one of the ways in which you can make the necessary transforms available.

Another way, which may be more convenient, would be to create a URDF (ie: a model of your robot).

It looks like this has already been done for this particular robot (and its variants) and you should be able to just reuse that work. Refer to Adept MobileRobots Pioneer and Pioneer-compatible platforms for a high-level overview of the ROS support for Pioneer robots, with links to packages and additional pages for the various variants.

I haven't used this Pioneer robot myself, but I would be surprised if there isn't already good support for it that you could just reuse.

PS: something to keep in mind: these robots are quite old, and Adept / MobileRobots stopped their business operations some time ago (see here for an announcement on ros-sig-pioneer). Everything could still be OK wrt ROS and software support for these robots, but be aware of the context and you could encounter some difficulties getting everything to work.

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Originally posted by gvdhoorn with karma: 86574 on 2019-10-15

This answer was ACCEPTED on the original site

Post score: 1

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Original comments

Comment by fendrbud on 2019-10-15:
Thanks! I think using the Pioneer LX URDF with joint_state_publisher and robot_state_publisher would be the simplest way since the URDF model is already written and available.

Comment by gvdhoorn on 2019-10-15:
There's actually some quite extensive ROS support for Pioneer (LX) robots. You may be able to reuse much more than just the .urdf. I'd look into that.