ROCO504x - CatchBot

Video of the catch-bot working: https://youtu.be/lfRBLpXKWZI

Installation and setup

ROS

Written for use with ROS Kinetic. ROS Kinetic installation instructions: http://wiki.ros.org/kinetic/Installation/Ubuntu

Once ROS Kinetic is installed, set up your catkin workspace: http://wiki.ros.org/catkin/Tutorials/create_a_workspace

mkdir -p ~/catkin_ws/src
cd ~/catkin_ws
catkin_make

If kinetic is the only version of ROS you are running, then run the following to automatically source your new terminals (and your current one):

echo "source ~/catkin_ws/devel/setup.bash" >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

Dynamixel

Install the dynamixel motor drivers for ROS: http://wiki.ros.org/dynamixel_motor

sudo apt-get install ros-$ROS_DISTRO-dynamixel-motor --y

or

sudo apt-get install ros-kinetic-dynamixel-motor --y

Camera

Install webcam drivers, QV4L2, usb support and uvcdynctrl (used to allow the tracking program to setup the camera feed):

sudo apt-get install v4l-* qv4l2 libusb-dev uvcdynctrl

CatchBot

Clone this repository to catkin_ws/src and build:

cd ~/catkin_ws/src/
git clone https://github.com/carebare47/ROCO504x
cd ..
catkin_make

udev rules setup

Copy ROCO504x/USBserialRules/99-usb-serial.rules to /etc/udev/rules.d and apply rules to assign mappings to the USBtoDynamixel adapters (you will have to edit this file if you don't use the physical adapters that are currently connected to our robot, as the rules file uses unique serial numbers for each device):

sudo cp ~/catkin_ws/src/ROCO504x/USBserialRules/99-usb-serial.rules /etc/udev/rules.d
sudo udevadm trigger

Throw motor setup

The following step will vary depending on which throw motor you wish to use. An example is provided for an arduino UNO on rosserial connected to a geared micro DC motor via a pololu JRK motor controller.

Install/setup rosserial: https://github.com/ros-drivers/rosserial

Program the arduino with code found in ROCO504x/throw_controller/ROCO504ThrowControl/ROCO504ThrowControl.ino

Running the robot

Then, in four terminals, start the following programmes:

roslaunch catcher_frame_controller controller_managerx2.launch
rosrun kinematic_controller kinematic_controller2 
rosrun throw_controller throw_controller_manual 
rosrun hough_ball_tracker hough_ball_tracker 

Visualising (for debug)

If you wish to visualise where the robot thinks the gripper is, then run rosrun catch_bot_plot 3_catch_bot_plot.py

CAD files

Here are the CAD files created for this project: https://github.com/carebare47/ROCO504xCAD

Flowchart (Only describes tracking algorithm)