Separating Simulation and Application

Learning Objective

The walkthrough demonstrates a navigation application that controls turtlebot3 in a Gazebo simulation on rapyuta.io

It shows the separation of launch files into application and simulation. It is recommended to run the simulation on the cloud and the application on either a computer or an instance of the cloud.

Prerequisites

  1. The CPU architecture of the device is AMD64
  2. Install ROS Melodic on the device.
  3. Install catkin-tools package on the device.
  4. Install the Chrome web browser on a computer.
  5. Familiarity with tools like git, UNIX/LINUX command terminal.
  6. Optional: ROS launch system concepts and ROS navigation stack structure are suggested readings if you want to run your applications with Gazebo on rapyuta.io. It will help you understand the usage better.

Difficulty

Intermediate

Estimated Time

25 minutes

Background

The source code for the walkthrough is in the turtlebot_navigation repository on GitHub.

The simulation and navigation application start from separate launch files so that the former runs on the cloud and the latter runs on a device.

The package, io_gazebo_turtlebot_bringup, includes files that start a demo application for navigating a turtlebot3 model in a Gazebo simulation. These files are:

  • common.launch
    • load configuration parameters shared between simulation and navigation application to respective ROS parameter servers, for example, robot_description, an initial position of the TurtleBot.
  • app.launch
    • launches amcl, move_base and other navigation related nodes through io_gazebo_turtlebot_navigation.launch
    • launches demo application that sends sequential move_base goals through demo_app.launch
    • loads common configuration parameters via common.launch
  • sim.launch
    • loads Gazebo simulation of turtlebot3 via io_gazebo_turtlebot_gazebo.launch file.
    • loads common configuration parameters via common.launch
  • bringup.launch
    • launches both sim.launch and app.launch.
    • ensures common.launch is called only once.

Prepare Device

On the device’s command line terminal, execute the following commands in sequence to set up a catkin workspace, install ROS dependencies and build the catkin workspace.

cd $HOME

mkdir -p catkin_ws/src

cd catkin_ws/src

git clone https://github.com/rapyuta-robotics/io_simulation_tutorials.git

rosdep init

rosdep update

rosdep install --from-paths --ignore-src io_simulation_tutorials/turtlebot_navigation/ -y --rosdistro melodic

cd ../

source /opt/ros/melodic/setup.bash

catkin build io_gazebo_turtlebot_bringup io_gazebo_turtlebot_demo_app io_gazebo_turtlebot_description io_gazebo_turtlebot_navigation

source devel/setup.bash

Onboard Device

  1. On the left navigation bar, click DEVICES.
  2. Click ADD NEW DEVICE.
  3. The name of the device is Turtlebot3 Navigation Simulation Device.
  4. Provide the absolute path of the catkin workspace in the ROS Catkin Workspace box. In this case, the workspace is /home/rapyuta/catkin_ws. The absolute path of your catkin workspace may be different, which can be determined by executing command pwd inside the root of the catkin workspace on the device’s terminal.
  5. Define the purpose of the device in the Description box.
  6. Click CONTINUE.
  7. Click COPY to copy the generated device token.
  8. Execute the token at the device’s terminal to set up rapyuta.io’s device agent on the device.

Create build

To create the build, follow below steps:

  1. On the left navigation bar, click BUILDS
  2. Click on ADD NEW BUILD
  3. In the Build Name box, enter a name for the build say io-simulation-navigation
  4. In the Git repository box, enter the url address : https://github.com/rapyuta-robotics/io_simulation_tutorials and select Build Recipe as Catkin.
  5. In the context directory, enter turtlebot_navigation
  6. Click on next, select ROS Version as Melodic and select the Has Simulation option.
  7. Click on next, the build will be created.

The build takes about two to five minutes to build the source code in the io_simulation_tutorials repository into a running docker container. You may analyse the corresponding build logs, which help debug failing builds.

Please proceed to creation of package once the build is Complete.

Create Packages

You will create and add two packages, namely, Navigation Application and Turtlebot3 Simulation.

  1. On the left navigation bar, click CATALOG.
  2. Click ADD NEW PACKAGE.
  3. The name of the package: Navigation Application
  4. Make sure Is a singleton package is not selected.
  5. Ensure Is a bindable package is selected.
  6. The version of the package is 1.0.0
  7. The purpose of the package is to Controlled navigation of turtlebot3
  8. Click NEXT.
  9. The name of the component: navigation_component
  10. The runtime of the component is Device.
  11. Ensure Is ROS Component is selected.
  12. Choose Melodic for ROS Version.
  13. Set Restart Policy to Never.
  14. The name of the executable: navigation_executable
  15. The Executable Type is Default.
  16. In the Command to run in the docker container box, enter the command: roslaunch io_gazebo_turtlebot_bringup app.launch
  17. Click on Add ROS topic. The name of the ROS topic is /cmd_vel, and it is set QoS to Low.
  18. Add a configuration parameter by clicking on Add Parameter. The name of the parameter is SPAWN_TURTLEBOT_ROBOT. The Default value is true.
  19. Click NEXT > CONFIRM PACKAGE CREATION.

Simulation Package

  1. On the left navigation bar, click CATALOG.
  2. Click ADD NEW PACKAGE.
  3. The name of the package: Simulation
  4. Make sure Is a singleton package is not selected.
  5. Ensure Is a bindable package is selected.
  6. The version of the package is 1.0.0
  7. The purpose of the package is to Simulation of turtlebot3
  8. Click NEXT.
  9. The name of the component: simulation_component
  10. The runtime of the component is Cloud.
  11. Ensure Is ROS Component is selected.
  12. Choose Melodic for ROS Version.
  13. The number of Replicas to run the component is 1
  14. The name of the executable: simulation_executable
  15. For Executable Type, click on Builds.
  16. In the Choose Build select the Build (io-simulation-navigation) created above from the drop-down list
  17. In the Command to run in the docker container box, enter the command: roslaunch io_gazebo_turtlebot_bringup sim.launch gui:=true
  18. Set Resource Limit to Medium:2 cpu cores, 8 GiB memory

    For simulation, the resource limit should either be Medium or Large. Simulation has issues with Small resource limits.

  19. Add the following ROS topics:
    1. Name: /joint_states, QoS: Low
    2. Name: /tf, QoS: Low
    3. Name: /scan, QoS: Low
    4. Name: /odom, QoS: Low
  20. Click NEXT.
  21. Under Inbound ROS Interfaces, Click on Add Topic to add the ROS topic /cmd_vel as an inbound ROS topic.
  22. Click CONFIRM PACKAGE CREATION.

Deploy Packages

You will first deploy the Simulation package, and then the Navigation Application package.

Deploy Simulation Package

  1. On the left navigation bar, click CATALOG.
  2. Select Simulation package.
  3. Click Deploy package.
  4. The name of deployment: SIMULATION
  5. Enter the value for VNC_PASSWORD
  6. Click CREATE DEPLOYMENT > Confirm

You will redirect to the Details tab of the newly created deployment. The SIMULATION is successfully running if the progress bar reaches Succeeded, and the status is Running.

Deploy Navigation Application Package

  1. On the left navigation bar, click CATALOG.
  2. Select Navigation Application package.
  3. Click Deploy package.
  4. The name of deployment: NAVIGATION
  5. Select Turtlebot3 Navigation Simulation Device as the device on which the navigation_component will be deployed.
  6. Check if the SPAWN_TURTLEBOT_ROBOT parameter has the value true.
  7. Check if the ros_wokspace and ros_distro device configuration variables have values set to the correct absolute path for catkin_ws and melodic respectively.
  8. Click Add dependency to add SIMULATION deployment as a dependent deployment.
  9. Click CREATE DEPLOYMENT > Confirm

You can verify if NAVIGATION APPLICATION is running successfully by checking if the progress bar reaches Succeeded and status is Running.

Result

  1. On the Details tab of SIMULATION deployment, copy the value of the network endpoint vnc.
  2. Paste the copied URL address in the address bar of the web browser and press Enter.
  3. Enter the value of VNC_PASSWORD, which you provided while deploying the package when prompted.

Advanced Tips

If you want to run your application separate from the Gazebo simulation on rapyuta.io, it will need time synchronization. Since the set up runs two ROS Masters, one in the cloud with Gazebo and the other on a computer with navigation nodes. The clock for these two applications will need to be in sync. The clock synchronization is by /clock ROS topic, which is published by Gazebo.

  • /use_sim_time is set to true in ROS parameter server to use /clock topic
  • If your application requires time synchronization, you have to wait on the /clock topic as shown here.