dhaiba_ros: connecting ROS and DhaibaWorks

Introduction

This package provides a set of software for making communications between ROS and DhaibaWorks. The following two bridging nodes are available;

• urdf_publisher: Publish a robot description loaded from the specified ROS parameter as well as its dynamical state obtained from TF to DhaibaWorks.
• dhaiba_ros_bridge: Transfer any type of messages between ROS and DhaibaWorks as ROS topics, services or actions.

Installation

Firstly, DhaibaConnect plugin available from portal site of DhaibaWorks should be installed to your DhaibaWorks environment on macOS or Windows.

Secondly, DhaibaConnectN should be installed on the Linux environment following the instructions described in the overview of DhaibaConnect.

Finally, you should install dhaiba_ros package;

$ sudo pip install pybind11 pybind11-cmake
$ cd catkin_ws/src
$ git clone https://gitlab.com/art-aist-private/dhaiba_ros
$ catkin build dhaiba_ros

urdf_publisher

The urdf_publisher publishes entire description of ROS world stored in a ROS parameter typically named /robot_description with URDF format. In addition, it also dynamically updates the geometrical state of the world according to the TF tree. The former is published as a set of DhaibaWorks topics of ShapeBox and ShapeSphere types for boxes and spheres respectively, or BinaryFile type for meshes. The latter is published as a topic of Armature type.

The urdf_publisher is launched by the following command;

$ roslaunch dhaiba_ros publish_urdf.launch [...]

where

• description_param: Name of ROS parameter containing robot description. (default: /robot_description)
• root_frame: Frame ID of the root of TF (sub)tree to be published to DhaibaWorks. (default: world)
• rate: Rate of publishing in Hz (default: 10)
• publish_armature: If true, publish TF (sub)tree as an armature of DhaibaWorks. (default: true)
• publish_elements: If true, publish geometrical elements such as boxes, spheres and meshes. (default: true)

dhaiba_ros_bridge

The dhaiba_ros_bridge provides functions for interchanging any type of messages between ROS and DhabaWorks. Messages are encoded with YAML format and transferred as Note of DhaibaConnect . The following three functions are supported.

Subscribe ROS topic and then publish it toward DhaibaWorks

Any ROS topic of arbitrary type can be transferred to DhaibaWorks;

$ roslaunch dhaiba_ros run.launch  op:=pub participant:=<participant name> element:=<element name>  name:=<topic name>

where

• participant: specifies participant name of this node as a DhaibaConnect publisher (default: dhaiba_ros_bridge)
• element: specifies DhaibaWorks element name of the transferred ROS topic, e.g. tf. The incoming topic appears as <participant>/<element> on the DhaibaWorks side.
• name: specifies ROS topic name to be transferred to DhaibaWorks, e.g. /tf.

Subscribe DhaibaWorks topic and then publish it toward ROS

Any DhaibaWoks topic can be transferred to ROS if its message type is known to ROS;

$ roslaunch dhaiba_ros run.launch op:=sub name:=<topic name> participant:=<participant name> element:=<element name> type:=<message type>

where

• participant: specifies participant name of the DhaibaWorks host with which this node communicates.
• element: specifies DhaibaWorks element name to be transferred to ROS.The subscribed topic appears as <participant>/<element>.
• name: specifies ROS topic name, e.g. /my_tf.
• type: specifies ROS message type to be transferred from DhaibaWorks, e.g. tf2_msgs/TFMessage.

Send commands from DhaibaWorks to a ROS node as ROS service requests and return the received responses back to DW

$ roslaunch dhaiba_ros run.launch op:=srv participant:=<participant name> element:=<element prefix> name:=<service name> type:=<service type>

where

• participant: specifies participant name of the DhaibaWorks host with which this node communicates.
• element: specifies prefix of DhaibaWorks elements transferred between ROS and DhaibaWorks. The request and response topics appear as <participant>/<element>Request and <participant>/<element>Response on the DhaibaWorks side, respectively.
• name: specifies ROS service name, e.g. /tutle1/teleport_absolute.
• type: specifies ROS service type to be transferred from DhaibaWorks, e.g. turtlesim/TeleportAbsolute.

Send commands from DhaibaWorks to a ROS node as ROS action goals and returns received feedbacks and results back to DW

$ roslaunch dhaiba_ros run.launch op:=act participant:=<participant name> element:=<element prefix> name:=<action name> type:=<action type>

where

• participant: specifies participant name of the DhaibaWorks host with which this node communicates.
• element: specifies prefix of DhaibaWorks elements transferred between ROS and DhaibaWorks. The goal, feedback and result topics appear as <participant>/<element>Goal, <participant>/<element>Feedback and <participant>/<element>Result on the DhaibaWorks side, respectively.
• name: specifies ROS action name, e.g. /fibonacci.
• type: specifies ROS action type to be transferred from DhaibaWorks, e.g. actionlib_tutorials/FibonacciAction.

Testing

Three commands are available for testing dahiba_ros_bridge.

Transferring robot descriptions

The following command load the specified URDF file into a ROS parameter named /robot_description and diplays in RViz. It also launches urdf_publisher which transfers the description to DhaibaWorks.

$ roslaunch dhaiba_ros test_urdf.launch [model:=<urdf file>]

The default model is dhaiba_ros/urdf/test_arm.urdf.

Transferring topics

The following command launches two ROS nodes dhaiba_ros_publisher and dhaiba_ros_subscriber. The former subscribes ROS topic /tf and publishes it as DhaibaWorks Note topic named dhaiba_ros_publisher/tf. The latter subscribes the topic published by the former and publishes it as ROS topic named /my_tf. Therefore, this test can be performed without using DhaibaWorks.

$ roslaunch dhaiba_ros test_topic.launch

Communicating over ROS services

response の中身はない（空）だが、視覚的に turtle が動く。

$ roslaunch dhaiba_ros test_srv.launch
$ rosrun dhaiba_ros pub.py dhaiba_ros_bridge Request.Note t

response の中身はあるが、視覚的に turtle が動く等はない。

$ roslaunch dhaiba_ros test_srv.launch teleport:=false
$ rosrun dhaiba_ros pub.py dhaiba_ros_bridge Request.Note f

Communicating over ROS actions

$ roslaunch dhaiba_ros test_act.launch
$ rosrun dhaiba_ros pub.py dhaiba_ros_bridge Goal.Note a