2018-05-06-mapping-athome

Note: When using Jenny, mapping is run on cob1

Bringup the robot

1. Run roscore:

   roscore

2. Run rviz:

   rosrun rviz rviz

   Set the global frame to base_link.

In simulation

1. Launch the robot:

   roslaunch mdr_bringup_sim robot.launch

Using the real robot

1. Make sure you have initialized Jenny (see here for more details).

2. Export Jenny's ssh alias:

   export_cob1

   To shh the Jenny (PC1) run the following in all terminals:

   cob1

3. Launch the robot:

   roslaunch mdr_bringup robot.launch

Launch SLAM

Building the map

1. Launch the SLAM node:

   roslaunch mdr_2dslam 2dslam.launch

   Note: the map is built using the front laser's only.

2. Set the global frame in Rviz to map

3. Move the robot around either by using the joystick or by teleoperation.

To save the map

Maps are stored in ~/catkin_ws/src/mas_common_robotics/mcr_environments/mcr_default_env_config. An environment, such as brsu-C025 or brsu-C069, is a folder in this directory. Within this folder, the maps, goals and parameters are stored.

1. To go to the folder where we will save the map you can run:

   roscd mcr_default_env_config

   By using ls you can see several folders corresponding to existing environments.

2. Before running the map_saver, you need to be located in the environment folder. You can either overwrite an existing map by using cd or you can create a new one:

   mkdir [map_name] && cd [map_name]

   For example:

   mkdir new_map && cd new_map

3. Finally, to save the map, just run:

   rosrun map_server map_saver

   This will create two files: a map.pgm and map.yml.

Finally, to use the map that you just created you need to check which map will be loaded by the navigation stack:

  echo $ROBOT_ENV

If you need to change it:

  export ROBOT_ENV=[map_name]

Note: Usually the .rosc script is used to set the environment, among other variables.