Bug fix: capped motor command values

The motor commands were too high causing the rover to move violently and lose connection to the Arduino.

Alpha Release to Swarmathon III Teams

The alpha version of the Swarmathon III swarmathon base code has been released. The current version number is 1.3.5. We have added a number of new features over the summer. Highlights include:

Updating the code to make it compatible with Ubuntu 16.04 (Xerius Xeres) and ROS Kinetic Kame. This allows the software to run on a wider variety of new computers, especially laptops. ROS Kinetic Kame used Gazebo 7 instead of Gazebo 2. Gazebo 7 allows for more realistic simulation of the Swarmie robots.

We have completed the base code refactor begun last year. This refactor moves the various behaviours of the rovers into separate controllers: for example, the cube pickup code is in its own controller called Pickupcontroller, obstacle avoidance and search are in other controllers. This modular approach should make modifying the base code easier since different behaviours are separated from one another.

The latest release is a bug fix: rovers in sim getting stuck. Due to the more realistic physics the rovers get stuck on cubes occasionally just like the real rovers. Since we have no simulated robot wranglers we placed wheel guards (collision boxes) in front of the front wheels to prevent them climbing the cubes.

Removed extraneous submodules

Some submodules were added with the wrong path. This release removes them.

Removed incorrect apriltag_ros submodule reference

An extra apriltag_ros submodule reference was included in the submodule config file. Removed it.

Replaced video_stream with usb_cam

Added usb_cam as a submodule since it is not provided with kinetic kame. Using usb_cam instead of video_stream because we have the calibration values for usb_cam.

Bug fix: Diagnostic data not sent by physical rover to GUI

This is a bug fix release. See the associated bug fix commits for more information.

Initial Alpha Release

This is the 3rd major release of the UNM-NASA Swarmathon code corresponding with the 3rd year of the competition.

This is a release that changes the structure of the robot logic package. Now called "behaviours" rather than "mobility". The intent of the changes is to make the logic more modular and object oriented. We have moved to a controller based approach inspired by Rodney Brooks' subsumption architecture. The Logic controller is the top layer with various other controllers able to interrupt and take over control in order to accomplish specific tasks such as obstacle avoidance or target pickup.

This release is compatible with kinetic kame and Ubuntu 16.04 xenial xerus.

The model files have been updated to fix problems with the mass and inertias. This allows more accurate physics and an increase in simulation speed.

This is an alpha release so it is under active development. We encourage the community of users to suggest fixes and improvements.