multi_kobuki

Description

The multi_kobuki workspace type is an extension of the basic_kobuki type to have more than one mobile robot.

The workspace type has two or more compute nodes:

  • hostname rrc0: offboard (physically outside the reachable space); x86_64 GNU/Linux box.
  • hostnames rrc1 ... rrcN: each mounted onboard one of the robots; small, low-power ARM board (armv7l).

on rrc0

There are two webcams attached and visible from the device files /dev/video0 and /dev/video1.

on rrc1

The Kobuki mobile platform and Hokuyo laser scanner are both attached via USB. In the default image, the home directory contains the roslaunch file robot.launch. This file starts a ROS Kinetic configuration for using the robot. It uses the ROS packages urg_node and kobuki_node.

on rrc2 ... rrcN

After the first mobile robot, deployments of this workspace type can include any number of mobile robots. Each is entirely similar to rrc1, except that it might have an RPLIDAR A2 laser scanner instead of one by Hokuyo. In that case, the reference robot.launch would instead use the ROS package rplidar, as shown in the source code.

Bill of materials

Photographs of a deployment

two Kobuki mobile bases; one with Hokuyo laser range finder and Raspberry Pi 3 Model B mounted

Changelog

version 2

  • number of mobile robots is now arbitrary (not only 2)

-- Scott C. Livingston <(hidden)> Tue, 28 Aug 2018

version 1

  • initial release

-- Scott C. Livingston <(hidden)> Thu, 9 Aug 2018