piyushpilaniya/robocomp

RoboComp is a cutting-edge open-source robotics framework providing tools to easily create, modify and manage robot software components.

RoboComp

by RoboLab, ISIS and many other collaborators.

RoboComp is an open-source Robotics framework providing the tools to create and modify software components that communicate through public interfaces. Components may require, subscribe, implement or publish interfaces in a seamless way. Building new components is done using two domain specific languages, IDSL and CDSL. With IDSL you define an interface and with CDSL you specify how the component will communicate with the world. With this information, a code generator creates C++ and/or Python sources, based on CMake, that compile and execute flawlessly. When some of these features have to be changed, the component can be easily regenerated and all the user specific code is preserved thanks to a simple inheritance mechanism.

If you already have RoboComp installed, jump to tutorials! to start coding!

Installation from source

Tested in Ubuntu 14.04, 14.10, 15.04 and 15.10

Requirements

Make sure you have installed the following packages from the Ubuntu repository:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install git git-annex cmake g++ libgsl0-dev libopenscenegraph-dev cmake-qt-gui zeroc-ice35 freeglut3-dev libboost-system-dev libboost-thread-dev qt4-dev-tools yakuake python-pip  python-pyparsing python-numpy python-pyside pyside-tools libxt-dev pyqt4-dev-tools qt4-designer libboost-test-dev libboost-filesystem-dev python-libxml2 python-xmltodict libccd-dev
sudo pip install networkx

Installation itself

cd to your home directory (you are probably in it already) and type:

git clone https://github.com/robocomp/robocomp.git

Now we will create a symbolic link so RobComp can find everything. You will have to enter your passwd:

sudo ln -s /home/<your-linux-user> /home/robocomp 

Edit your ~/.bashrc file

gedit ~/.bashrc

Add these lines at the end:

export ROBOCOMP=/home/<your-linux-user>/robocomp
export PATH=$PATH:/opt/robocomp/bin

make bash process the modified file by typing:

source ~/.bashrc

Done! Now let's compile and install the whole thing:

sudo rm -r /opt/robocomp
cd robocomp
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make
sudo make install

If you want to compile Robocomp with support for FCL, follow the instructions in the [Robocomp with FCL](doc/Compiling RoboComp with collision detection.md) tutorial"

The RoboComp's core libraries and simulator should now be compiled and installed in /opt/robocomp.

Let's now tell Linux where to find RoboComp's libraries:

sudo nano /etc/ld.so.conf

and add the following line:

/opt/robocomp/lib/

save the file and type:

sudo ldconfig

Done! Now let's have some fun.

Testing the installation using the RCIS robotics simulator

We will first fetch some meshes and textures used by the simulator (it will take a while):

cd ~/robocomp
git annex get .

Now let's run the simulator.

cd ~/robocomp/files/innermodel
rcis simpleworld.xml

Congratulations! RCIS should be up and running with a simple robot endowed with a laser and an RGBD camera, moving on a wooden floor. Don't forget to turn around the floor to see the robot from above.

Installing some RoboLab's components from GitHub

The software of the robots using RoboComp is composed of different software components working together, communicating among them. What we just installed is just the core of RoboComp (the simulator, a component generator and some libraries). To have other features like joystick control we have to run additional software components available from other repositories, for example robocomp-robolab:

cd ~/robocomp/components
git clone https://github.com/robocomp/robocomp-robolab.git

The RoboLab's set of basic robotics components are now dowloaded. You can see them in ~/robocomp/components/robocomp-robolab/components

Connecting a JoyStick (if no JoyStick available skip to the next section)

If you have a joystick around, connect it to the USB port and:

cd ~/robocomp/components/robocomp-robolab/components/joystickComp
cmake .
make
cd bin
sudo addgroup your-user dialout   // To solve some permissions issues in Ubuntu
./startJoyStick.sh 

Your joystick should be now running. It will make the robot advance and turn at your will. If the component does not start or the robot does not move stop joystickcomp with:

./forceStopJoyStickComp.sh

and check where the joystick device file has been created (e.g., /dev/input/js0). If it is not /dev/input/js0, edit ~/robocomp/components/robocomp-robolab/components/joystickComp/etc/config change it accordingly and restart. Note that you might want to save the config file to the component's home directory so it does not interfere with future github updates.

Using the keyboard as a JoyStick

If you don't have a JoyStick install this componentent,

cd ~robocomp/components/robocomp-robolab/components/keyboardrobotcontroller
cmake .
make
src/keyboardrobotcontroller.py --Ice.Config=etc/config

and use the arrow keys to navigate the robot, the space bar to stop it an 'q' to exit.

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You can find more tutorials on RoboComp in tutorials!

Drop comments and ask questions in:

• https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=es#!forum/robocomp-dev
• https://gitter.im/robocomp

Please, report any bugs to [email protected]