Robots Using ROS: Washington University's B21r (Lewis) and Erratics (Blood, Sweat, Toil, and Tears)

The Media and Machines Lab at Washington University in St. Louis has integrated several of their robots with ROS, including an iRobot B21r and several Videre ERRATICs. They are also maintaining wu-ros-pkg, which is a repository of research projects, drivers, and utilities related to these robots.

Wash U.'s B21r, known as Lewis, is best known for being a mobile robot photographer. Lewis is currently being used for HRI research, and they are also reimplementing the photographer functionality in ROS. Lewis is fully integrated with ROS, including sensor data from 48 sonar sensors, 56 bump sensors, 2 webcams, and a Hokuyo laser rangerfinder. There is also Directed Perception PTU-46 pan-tilt unit that they have mounted the webcams on (driver).

The B21r community will be happy to know that Wash U. has deeply integrated this platform with ROS. They have created an urdf model, complete with meshes for visualizing in rviz, and they have also integrated the B21r with the ROS navigation stack. They are also providing an rwi stack, which includes their rflex driver. The rflex driver is capable of driving other iRobot/RWI robot platforms, including the B18, ATRV, and Magellan Pro.

Wash U. has also integrated their four Videre ERRATICs with ROS. They've named these robots Blood, Sweat, Toil, and Tears, and have equipped them with Hokuyo laser rangerfinders and webcams. The ERRATICs enable them to explore research in multi-robot coordination and control. They're also developing on iRobot Creates using drivers from brown-ros-pkg.

The research at the Media and Machines Lab has led to several interfaces and visualizations for using robots. This includes RIDE (Robot Interactive Display Environment), which takes cues from Real Time Strategy (RTS) video games to provide an interface for easily controlling multiple robots simultaneously. They have also developed a visualization for mapping sensor data over time for search tasks and a 3D interface for binocular robots. RIDE is available in the ride stack, and much of their other research will soon be released in wu-ros-pkg.