Robot Sorting Simulator

Simulator in action

Installation and setting up the environment

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• Setup ROS Kinetic and catkin workspace.

  • Add ROS Kinetic API Keys

    sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://packages.ros.org/ros/ubuntu $(lsb_release -sc) main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ros-latest.list'
    sudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://ha.pool.sks-keyservers.net:80 --recv-key 421C365BD9FF1F717815A3895523BAEEB01FA116
    sudo apt-get update
    

  • Install ROS Kinetic

    sudo apt-get install ros-kinetic-ros-base
    sudo apt install python-rosinstall python-rosinstall-generator python-wstool build-essential
    

  • Initialize rosdep

    sudo rosdep init
    rosdep update
    

  • Setup catkin workspace

    sudo apt-get install python-pip
    pip install catkin_pkg
    echo "source /opt/ros/kinetic/setup.bash" >> ~/.bashrc
    mkdir -p ~/catkin_ws/src && cd ~/catkin_ws/ && catkin_make
    echo "source $HOME/catkin_ws/devel/setup.bash" >> ~/.bashrc
    

• Install the STDR simulator

  sudo apt-get install ros-kinetic-stdr-simulator
  

• If your location of catkin workspace is other than $HOME/catkin_ws/, let's say $HOME/my_catkin_ws/ then set a CATKIN_WORKSPACE path variable.

  echo 'export CATKIN_WORKSPACE=$HOME/my_catkin_ws/' >> $HOME/.bashrc
  

• Clone the sorting_robot package.

  cd $HOME/catkin_ws/src/
  git clone https://github.com/taraprasad73/sorting_robot
  

• Install the package and its dependencies

  sudo apt-get install python-tk
  sudo apt install msttcorefonts -qq
  rm ~/.cache/matplotlib -rf
  pip install fonttools
  pip install rospkg pyyaml empy
  pip install -r sorting_robot/requirements.txt
  cd ..
  catkin_make
  

Understanding the file structure of the package

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• /scripts contains various python scripts, these files are executable and can be executed with rosrun
• /nodes contains various rosnodes, these files are executable and can be executed with rosrun
• /src contains the python packages, these files are used by the files in /scripts and /nodes, and shouldn't be invoked directly
• /msg contains message definitions
• /srv contains service definitions
• /launch contains launch files
• /data contains configuration files and images
• /stdr_data contains files needed to launch the stdr simulator
• requirements.txt contains the list of python package dependencies, can be installed through pip
• setup.py is the equivalent of makefile for python, allows the scripts and nodes to access the python files from /src folder
• /.circleci contains the yaml file to execute continuous integration tests on CircleCI

Description of various script files [TODO]

Any script file can be executed as rosrun sorting_robot name_of_script_file [command_line arguments if any]

• generate_map_config
• generate_binary_map
• generate_grid_image
• generate_networkx_graph
• generate_spawn_locations

Description of various rosnode files [TODO]

Any launch file can be executed as rosrun sorting_robot name_of_launch_file [command_line arguments if any]

• heatmap
• path_planner
• visualize_heatmap
• traffic_manager

Description of the python packages [TODO]

• sorting_robot
  • map_generation
  • stdr_initializer
  • path_planning
  • traffic_manager
  • bfsm

Running the Sorting Robot Program

Generate the maps

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Add these to .bashrc file. Replace [map_name] with the name of your map in the below lines.

export ROS_LOG_DIR=$HOME/catkin_ws/src/sorting_robot/logs
export SORTING_ROBOT_MAP=[map_name]

Create a [map_name]_params.ini file in data/map_params folder.

rosrun sorting_robot generate_map_config
rosrun sorting_robot generate_binary_map
rosrun sorting_robot generate_networkx_graph
rosrun sorting_robot generate_grid_image

Or as a shortcut, if not interested in changing the command-line args of the previous scripts, run all this in one go.

rosrun sorting_robot generate_maps

The output files will be generated in $HOME/catkin_ws/src/sorting_robot/data/[map_name] folder.

Launch the entire sorting_robot system

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Execute these commands in sequence.

Terminal 0: roscore
Terminal 1: roslaunch sorting_robot stdr_server_with_map_and_gui.launch
Terminal 2: rosrun sorting_robot generate_spawn_locations [num_of_robots_to_spawn]
            rosrun sorting_robot spawn_robots_from_script
Terminal 3: rosrun sorting_robot heatmap
Terminal 4: rosrun sorting_robot path_planner
Terminal 5: rosrun sorting_robot pickup_manager
Terminal 6: rosrun sorting_robot generate_launch_files
            roslaunch sorting_robot controllers.launch
Terminal 7: roslaunch sorting_robot bfsms.launch

Coding Standards

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Naming Conventions

• Functions: lowercase words separated by underscores
• Class: Camelcase starting with uppercase
• Methods: lowercase words separated by underscores
• Variables: lowercase words separated by underscores
• Private Functions and Methods: Start with an underscore
• Constants (also in Enums): All uppercase words separated by underscores

Use Visual Studio Code as the editor and pep8 as the linter for python and autopep8 for autoformatting.

Linter used

• pep8 with E501 and E402 disabled
• E501 - places a limit on the length of a line of code
• E402 - forces module level import at top of file

Setting pep8 in VSCode

Add the following lines to the settings.json found in File/Preferences/Settings. Don't remove any existing key value pairs present, unless its a duplicate.

{
    "python.linting.enabled": true,
    "python.linting.pylintEnabled": false,
    "python.linting.pep8Enabled": true,
    "python.linting.pep8Args": [
        "--ignore=E501,E402"
    ],
    "python.formatting.autopep8Args": [
        "--ignore=E501,E402"
    ],
}