add_a_robot.md

How to add a robot

This is a guide on how the interface with ROS actually works.

World Updates

Topic Listeners

In general, the ROS interface is provided via the CostarWorld base class.

Gripper Listener

Anything that takes gripper input needs to implement the AbstractGripperListener base class. This class consumes a message via the callback function, and returns a status code via the getStatus function.

To summarize:

• gripper_listener.callback(msg) -- ROS subscriber callback
• gripper_listener.getStatus(msg) -- called by CostarWorld to update the actor.

Joint Listener

This is a pretty simple interface that captures the robot's last observed joint position.

Object Poses

These read in through TF.

Dynamics

There is a set of default "dynamics" provided both for simulated and physical robots, but these will not be able to handle all arbitrary robots and grippers. Consider making a SimulatedDynamics and SubsccriberDynamics of your own.

Note that the SimulatedDynamics is the set of dynamics that the planner uses to advance the world state; this is not a set of dynanics used for Gazebo or something!