| Note: This tutorial assumes that you have completed the previous tutorials: Assembling the TurtleBot Arm. |
Installation Instructions for TurtleBot Arm
Description: Installing the software for the TurtleBot Arm, both on the TurtleBot and on the local machine.Tutorial Level: INTERMEDIATE
Contents
Introduction
Please note that the turtelbot_arm stack requires that your PC and the TurtleBot are both running electric.
On your PC
Set your directories up
You will need to have a folder to store the packages we are about to check out. We suggest ~/ros. In order to set up ROS to search ~/ros for packages, follow the steps below:
mkdir ~/ros/ echo "export ROS_PACKAGE_PATH=$HOME/ros:$ROS_PACKAGE_PATH" >> ~/.bashrc . ~/.bashrc
arbotix and simple_arms
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install ros-electric-arbotix ros-electric-simple-arms
turtlebot_arm
cd ~/ros/ hg clone https://kforge.ros.org/turtlebot/turtlebot_arm
On the TurtleBot
You will need to install the same stacks on the TurtleBot, again we suggest in the ~/ros directory.
arbotix
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install ros-electric-arbotix ros-electric-simple-arms
turtlebot_arm
cd ~/ros/ hg clone https://kforge.ros.org/turtlebot/turtlebot_arm
Setting up the URDF
Next, we have to set up the TurtleBot's hardware description file (URDF) to include the arm. This is done through the TurtleBot bringup script in /etc/ros/turtlebot.
On the TurtleBot, edit /etc/ros/turtlebot/bringup.launch in your favorite text editor and change it to resemble this:
<launch>
<param name="turtlebot_node/gyro_scale_correction" value="1.0"/>
<param name="turtlebot_node/odom_angular_scale_correction" value="1.0"/>
<include file="$(find turtlebot_bringup)/minimal.launch">
<arg name="urdf_file" value="$(find xacro)/xacro.py '$(find turtlebot_arm_description)/urdf/arm.urdf.xacro'" />
</include>
</launch>The line
<arg name="urdf_file" value="$(find xacro)/xacro.py '$(find turtlebot_arm_description)/urdf/arm.urdf.xacro'" />
tells the TurtleBot to use the urdf that includes the arm from the turtlebot_arm_description package.
Next Tutorial
The next tutorial, Setting up the Dynamixel Servos, will walk you through programming the firmware on the ArbotiX and setting up the servo IDs.