sabertooth_rospy

ROS node to control a diff-drive robot with a sabertooth motor controller with Teleop_twist_joy node Tested with Xbox 360, Logitech F310 controllers

Downloading and Running

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• Install pysabertooth (A required python library for this package). Run python -m pip install pysabertooth

• If you already have a catkin workspace : Clone this repo in the /src folder of your workspace. Build packages using catkin_make.

• If you're creating a workspace for the first time, I'd suggest taking a look at ROS tutorials to create catkin workspaces, catkin_packages and cloning packages from git

  TL;DR:

  source /opt/ros/<ROS_DISTRO>/setup.bash
  mkdir -p ~/catkin_ws/src
  cd ~/catkin_ws/src
  git clone <link to repo>
  cd ~/catkin_ws
  rosdep install --from-paths src --ignore-src -r -y
  catkin_make

Note

Depending on your ubuntu setup, you may need to give read/write permissions to the port. This can be done by running chmod +x /dev/tty<port>. You may need to run this as root (sudo).

If your user doesn't belong to the serial group, add user to the dialout group by running sudo usermod -a -G dialout $USER

Update

• Added teleop_twist_joy as package dependency in place of cloing a separate git submodule. Running a rosdep install mentioned in the TL;DR will install it.
• Changed launch file to launch teleop specific parameters

To-Do

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• ROS node to subscribe to cmd_vel from teleop_twist_joy
• Convert cmd_vel to diff-drive velocities for each wheel
• Sabertooth_rospy node to detect a connected sabertooth device
• Send drive commands to sabertooth motor controller
• teleop_twist_joy tuning to get adequate speed on robot
• change linear and angular axis for driving robot
• launch file to launch teleop, cmd_vel conversion and sabertooth to motor comm
• Code cleanup and commenting
• README.md instructions
• Udev instructions to rename device to appear as /dev/sabertooth