This software is a reduced version of Locosim, to provide the simulations of a climbing robot called CLIO presented in the paper: CLIO: a Novel Robotic Solution for Exploration and Rescue Missions in Hostile Mountain Environments

Locosim is composed by a roscontrol node called ros_impedance_controller (written in C++) that interfaces the python ros node (where the controller is written) to a Gazebo simulator. You can run the script climbingrobot_controller.py to start the Gazebo simulation. The optimization made with PINS is not available due to licensing issues, we report only the validation an equivalent (but slower) optimization made in matlab. You can set the target point in optimal_control.m then simulate with the script matlab_sim.m. Remember to set the flag VALIDATION=false to simulate the result of your optimization. With VALIDATION=true you will just get the validation plot present in the paper, that was obtained from and optimization done in PINS.

Locosim is compatible with Ubuntu 16/18/20. The installation instructions have been generalized accordingly. You need replace four strings (PYTHON_PREFIX, PYTHON_VERSION, PIP_PREFIX, ROS_VERSION) with the appropriate values according to your operating systems as follows:

NOTE: ROS is no longer supported (only ROS2) on Ubuntu 22 hence is not possible to install Locosim on Ubuntu 22.

setup your source list:

sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://packages.ros.org/ros/ubuntu $(lsb_release -sc) main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ros-latest.list'

Set up your keys:

curl -sSL 'http://keyserver.ubuntu.com/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0xC1CF6E31E6BADE8868B172B4F42ED6FBAB17C654' | sudo apt-key add -

install ROS main distro:

sudo apt-get install ros-ROS_VERSION-desktop-full

install ROS packages:

sudo apt-get install ros-ROS_VERSION-urdfdom-py

sudo apt-get install ros-ROS_VERSION-srdfdom

sudo apt-get install ros-ROS_VERSION-joint-state-publisher

sudo apt-get install ros-ROS_VERSION-joint-state-publisher-gui

sudo apt-get install ros-ROS_VERSION-joint-state-controller 

sudo apt-get install ros-ROS_VERSION-gazebo-msgs

sudo apt-get install ros-ROS_VERSION-control-toolbox

sudo apt-get install ros-ROS_VERSION-gazebo-ros

sudo apt-get install ros-ROS_VERSION-controller-manager

sudo apt install ros-ROS_VERSION-joint-trajectory-controller

Add robotpkg as source repository to apt:

sudo sh -c "echo 'deb [arch=amd64] http://robotpkg.openrobots.org/packages/debian/pub $(lsb_release -sc) robotpkg' >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/robotpkg.list"

sudo sh -c "echo 'deb [arch=amd64] http://robotpkg.openrobots.org/wip/packages/debian/pub $(lsb_release -sc) robotpkg' >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/robotpkg.list"

Register the authentication certificate of robotpkg:

sudo apt install -qqy lsb-release gnupg2 curl

curl http://robotpkg.openrobots.org/packages/debian/robotpkg.key | sudo apt-key add -

You need to run at least once apt update to fetch the package descriptions:

sudo apt-get update

Now you can install Pinocchio and the required libraries:

sudo apt install robotpkg-PINOCCHIO_PYTHON_VERSION-eigenpy	

sudo apt install robotpkg-PINOCCHIO_PYTHON_VERSION-pinocchio

sudo apt-get install robotpkg-PINOCCHIO_PYTHON_VERSION-quadprog  

NOTE: If you have issues in installing robotpkg libraries you can try to install them through ROS as:

sudo apt-get install ros-ROS_VERSION-LIBNAME

sudo apt-get install PYTHON_PREFIX-scipy

sudo apt-get install PYTHON_PREFIX-matplotlib

sudo apt-get install PYTHON_PREFIX-termcolor

sudo apt install python3-pip

Now that you installed all the dependencies you are ready to get the code, but first you need to create a ros workspace to out the code in:

mkdir -p ~/ros_ws/src

cd ~/ros_ws/src

Now you need to call the following line manually (next you will see that it will be done automatically in the .bashrc)

source /opt/ros/ROS_VERSION/setup.bash

cd ~/ros_ws/

 catkin_make

 cd ~/ros_ws/src/ 

Now you can clone the repository inside the ROS workspace you just created:

git clone https://github.com/mfocchi/climbing_robots.git

now recompile again (then this step won't bee needed anymore if you just work in python unless you do not modify / create additional ROS packages)

cd ~/ros_ws/ 

 catkin_make install

the install step install the ros packages inside the "$HOME/ros_ws/install" folder rather than the devel folder. This folder will be added to the ROS_PACKAGE_PATH instead of the devel one.

Finally, run (you should do it any time you add a new ros package)

 rospack profile

There are some additional utilities that I strongly suggest to install. You can find the list here.

gedit  ~/.bashrc

copy the following lines (at the end of the .bashrc), remember to replace the string PYTHON_VERSION with the appropriate version name as explained in software versions section:

source /opt/ros/ROS_VERSION/setup.bash
source $HOME/ros_ws/install/setup.bash
export PATH=/opt/openrobots/bin:$PATH
export LOCOSIM_DIR=$HOME/ros_ws/src/climbing_robots
export PYTHONPATH=/opt/openrobots/lib/pythonPYTHON_VERSION/site-packages:$LOCOSIM_DIR/robot_control:$PYTHONPATH
export ROS_PACKAGE_PATH=$ROS_PACKAGE_PATH:/opt/openrobots/share/

the .bashrc is a file that is automatically sourced whenever you open a new terminal.

NOTE: people with some operating systems like ARCH LINUX, might need to add "export ROS_IP=127.0.0.1" to the .bashrc.

Whenever you modify some of the ROS packages (e.g. the ones that contain the xacro fles inside the robot_description folder), you need to install them to be sure they are been updated in the ROS install folder.

cd ~/ros_ws/ 

 catkin_make install 

IMPORTANT!

The first time you compile the code the install folder is not existing, therefore won't be added to the PYTHONPATH with the command source $HOME/ros_ws/install/setup.bash, and you won't be able to import the package ros_impedance_controller. Therefore, only once, after the first time that you compile, run again :

source .bashrc

We recommend to use an IDE to run and edit the python files, like Pycharm community. To install it, you just need to download and unzip the program:

https://download.jetbrains.com/python/pycharm-community-2021.1.1.tar.gz

and unzip it inside the docker (e.g. copy it inside the ~/trento_lab_home folder.

IMPORTANT! I ask you to download this specific version (2021.1.1) that I am sure it works, because the newer ones seem to be failing to load environment variables!

1. To run Pycharm community type (if you are lazy you can create an alias...):

$ pycharm_folder/bin/pycharm.sh

2. remember to run pycharm-community from the terminal otherwise it does not load the environment variables loaded inside the .bashrc.

3. click "Open File or Project" and open the folder robot_control. Then launch one of the labs in locosim/robot_control/lab_exercises or in locosim/robot_control/base_controllers (e.g. base_controller_fixed.py) right click on the code and selecting "Run File in Pyhton Console"

4. the first time you run the code you will be suggested to select the appropriate interpreter (/usr/binpython3.8). Following this procedure you will be sure that the run setting will be stored, next time that you start Pycharm.

IMPORTANT! To be able to keep the plots alive at the end of the program and to have access to variables, you need to "Edit Configurations..." and tick "Run with Python Console". Otherwise the plot will immediately close.

To run from a terminal we use the interactive option that allows when you close the program have access to variables:

$ python3 -i $LOCOSIM_DIR/robot_control/base_controllers/climbingrobot_controller.py

to exit from python3 console type CTRL+Z

1. Most of machines, do not have support for GPU. This means that if you run Gazebo Graphical User Interface (GUI) it can become very slow. A way to mitigate this is to avoid to start the Gazebo GUI and only start the gzserver process that will compute the dynamics, you will keep the visualization in Rviz. This is referred to planners that employ BaseController or BaseControllerFixed classes. In the Python code where you start the simulator you need to pass this additional argument as follows:

additional_args = 'gui:=false'
p.startSimulator(..., additional_args =additional_args)

2. Another annoying point is the default timeout to kill Gazebo that is by default very long. You can change it (e.g. to 0.1s) by setting the _TIMEOUT_SIGINT = 0.1 and _TIMEOUT_SIGTERM = 0.1:

sudo gedit /opt/ros/ROS_VERSION/lib/PYTHON_PREFIX/dist-packages/roslaunch/nodeprocess.py

this will cause ROS to send a kill signal much sooner.

3. if you get this annoying warning:

Warning: TF_REPEATED_DATA ignoring data with redundant timestamp for frame...

a dirty hack to fix it is to clone this repository in your workspace:

git clone --branch throttle-tf-repeated-data-error [email protected]:BadgerTechnologies/geometry2.git