ELEC230 - Lab session 4

In this lab session we will install the packages need for Asssignment 3. The true purpose of lab session 4 is to catch up with previous sessions, so if you haven’t completed labs 2 and 3 this is your chance to catch up. This lab sheet is short in comparison and could easily be done once   assignment 3 is release. However, if you want to have an early play with Gazebo, this sheet will allow you to.

Install Gazebo

In a terminal run the following command:

$ sudo apt install gazebo11

$ cd

$ gedit .bashrc

Add to the last line of the .bashrc file:

$ source /usr/share/gazebo-11/setup.bash

Save and exit the .bashrc

$ source .bashrc

This will install gazebo, to test it has installed correctly, simply type into the terminal

$ gazebo

Have a look at some of the worlds that come with gazebo, e.g. run

$ gazebo /usr/share/gazebo-11/worlds/willowgarage.world

To see the office where ROS was designed. Play around with your mouse and keyboard, so you get comfortable with controlling the world.

Install TurtleBot

We will start by installing the packages we need to get turtlebot working $ sudo apt update

$ sudo apt-get install ros-foxy-turtlebot3*

Now type into a terminal

$ export TURTLEBOT3_MODEL=burger

We need to do this every time we open a new terminal to tell ROS what model of robot we want to use. You can also add it to your .bashrc script. to avoid having to do this.

Next, run the following command, it will open up gazebo and load the turtlebot3_world world fileand put our robot model in it.

$ ros2 launch turtlebot3_gazebo turtlebot3_world.launch.py

In a new terminal type the following command

$ export TURTLEBOT3_MODEL=burger

$ ros2 run turtlebot3_teleop teleop_keyboard

Keeping this terminal open you should be able to make your robot navigate around the world. In assignment 3 we will be instructing the robot to do this automatically by itself!