How to get a ROSbot to move autonomously?

Projects
1

I’m new to ROS and Gazebo, but have been tasked with finding a way to make the ROSbot navigate a simple maze (without coding anything just yet) to see how it will act. I am using Gazebo for the simulation. I know how to move the robot with rosrun teleop_twist_keyboard teleop_twist_keyboard.py but am lost with how to make it navigate a maze without coding anything. The whole point of the project is to see how the robot attempts to get out of the maze on its own, and how we can improve upon this through code. Can someone point me in the right direction? Are there any specific nodes that get this job done?

Edit: Also, is the Building Editor the best way to build a maze within Gazebo? This is what we have been using so far, but open to suggestions that may make this process more easy/efficient. Thanks all!

2

Without coding anything? I assume you already have a model for your bot. You could try reading through navigation at ROS Wiki. A rough path you could follow is:

  • Assuming you can get Gazebo to launch with the bot, turtlebot3_navigation is an excellent resource
  • Tweak the parameters in turtlebot3_navigation to include your own URDF. If you’re unsure about a parameter then leave it to the default from the ROS Wiki
  • I’d also suggest you look into SLAM (specifically gmapping) and run it with the default params

It’ll take lots of tweaking and will require some coding to get it to run properly.