chadrockey / base_controller

This base controller for ROS on Android allows the user to drive the Kobuki or Create bases from an Android device directly connected to the desired base via USB.

base_controller

This base controller for ROS on Android allows the user to drive the Kobuki or Create bases from an Android device directly connected to the desired base via USB.

Building

To build this package you can just use gradlew from the command line, or you can put the package inside a catkin workspace and built it with catkin_make.

Requirements

In order to use this code to drive a Create or a Kobuki base, an Android device with USB On The Go (OTG) is needed. A usb-otg cable is also needed.

We tested this code in:

• Nexus 7
• Nexus 7 2013
• Galaxy S4 Google Edition

Usage

These code fragments show how to use this package to create a Kobuki driver in an ROS Activity. For the Create base you should simple replace Kobuki with Create.

Import the USB library:

import com.hoho.android.usbserial.driver.UsbSerialDriver;
import com.hoho.android.usbserial.driver.UsbSerialProber;

Import the ROS nodes and the base drivers:

import com.github.c77.base_controller.BaseControllerNode;
import com.github.c77.base_controller.BaseStatusPublisher;
import com.github.c77.base_driver.KobukiBaseDevice;

You can instantiate the nodes when creating the Main ROS Activity:

public MainActivity() {
    super("MainActivity", "MainActivity");
    baseControllerNode = new BaseControllerNode("/cmd_vel");
    baseStatusPublisher = new BaseStatusPublisher();
}

In the init method of the Node, we use the USB library to find the device and create the base driver. After creating the base driver, we can set the device to the two nodes.

// Get UsbManager from Android.
UsbManager manager = (UsbManager) getSystemService(Context.USB_SERVICE);
// Find the first available driver.
UsbSerialDriver driver = UsbSerialProber.findFirstDevice(manager);
// Create the low level base device.
KobukiBaseDevice kobukiBaseDevice = new KobukiBaseDevice(driver);
baseControllerNode.setBaseDevice(kobukiBaseDevice);
baseStatusPublisher.setBaseDevice(kobukiBaseDevice);

After this point use the nodeMainExecutor to launch the nodes.