RobotX 2024: Task 6 - Dock and Deliver TEST CASES

[DaniParr]

What needs to change?

Write test cases for Task 6. Create these by modifying existing worlds and saving those world files to be deployed on ROS launch as an argument.

How would this task be tested?

1. Launch ROS: roslaunch navigator_launch simulation.launch world:=<name_of_world> --screen

[maxhv1]

Status report: I learned gazebo and Git for MIL usage, then tried making the dock model in blender, but now I am simply repurposing the 2022 dock model from the VRX submodule. The new world file will be in 2024-task6-testworld, but the dock is not yet to spec for this year, which entails me updating placard plugin in the VRX submodule to include squares

[maxhv1]

For fun, here's my original attempt at modeling the dock. I think I understand the pipeline for blender to gazebo now, but the model from last robotX is far better for sure, since it has a lot of neat plugins like scoring

[DaniParr]

Hey Max, I'm not too sure if the dimensions of the doc are to scale for the 2024 competition. Can you reply to this comment and ensure that the dimensions you have set up for your doc match the handbook.

Great job by the way :D

[maxhv1]

Hey Max, I'm not too sure if the dimensions of the doc are to scale for the 2024 competition. Can you reply to this comment and ensure that the dimensions you have set up for your doc match the handbook.

Great job by the way :D

@DaniParr the dock does not yet match the handbook specifications, I'll get to it 👍

[maxhv1]

pushed world to 2024-task6-testworld, placards updated to this year based on 2022 work, past stuff is just commented out for current functionality. Placard/icon dimensions accurate, may be dock/station discrepancies if there were changes to RobotX 2024 compared toVRX 2022. somewhat in progress is a 1x1 dock generator (comapared to 4x4 from 2022), but I haven't gotten the .erb's to work

to run the world in gazebo: roslaunch navigator_launch simulation.launch use_mil_world:=true world:=scan_dock_fling_2024/default --screen

[maxhv1]

to cycle through placards, do a manual publish to these topics through rqt

[maxhv1]

I've mentioned this to @DaniParr and @Keith-Khadar , I've been busy the past couple of weeks with some home life issues and exams. I am trying to get back into the swing of things for MIL, though it's not been too good. I've been trying to figure out what went wrong with my git push, and I believe it was because I was working in the VRX submodule.

I was using the VRX submodule since it seemed like past dock models were made there, and I simply copied and updated the most recent one available, as well as the placard plugin. I could potentially edit the model I have into a barebone model inside the navigator_gazebo/models folder (avoiding vrx submodule) but I'm not sure if I can get the plugins working again without it being in the vrx siubmodule. Unsure how to progress.

[maxhv1]

As you can see in a8fd0bb , the new world was successfully pushed to remote, but not any of the relevant changes I made in simulation/VRX/vrx

[maxhv1]

I should have realized this sooner, but the VRX submodule is not MIL owned. Locally, I need to move the changes I made somewhere into simulation/navigator_gazebo and then I can push that to remote. https://github.com/osrf/vrx has an Apache License 2.0, so I think including modified versions of the plugin should be acceptable, but the plugin path specifications to the reorganized, modified plugins will need to be changed

[maxhv1]

I merged master back into my branch https://github.com/uf-mil/mil/tree/2024-task6-testworld 2024-task6-testworld which resolved my VRX submodule issues, and everything seems to be running okay.
Run
$ roslaunch navigator_launch simulation.launch use_mil_world:=true world:=scan_dock_fling_2024/default --screen
and then run Gazebo AND run RQT ($ rqt ) like this: Right click the topic and do publish selected once to cycle through the placard symbols.
I can add more world presets for the test cases if needed, but the 2024 dock model is finally working with the VRX plugins as originally intended. If the dynamic dock is needed, I can get that up as well.

[maxhv1]

status report: awaiting PR, although this is understandably low priority compared to other issues and with the deadline approaching. The branch seems usable, @aaliao was reportedly using it, it seems time for me to move on to another issue soon, although if any polishing is needed for the PR I will do so as I am notified.