Enable programmatic control of the Boston Dynamic Spot robot through the Robot Operating System (ROS) interface.

The spot_ros_interface ROS package provides a ROS interface to the Spot API converting ROS messages to API/gRPC calls to the Spot robot.

1. Set up your catkin workspace (e.g. ~/catkin_ws), and source the developer init script:

   source ~/catkin_ws/devel/setup.bash
   

2. Clone this repo to the src directory in your Catkin workspace

   cd ~/catkin_ws/src/
   git clone https://github.com/ut-amrl/spot-ros-wrapper.git
   

3. Build using catkin_make:

   cd ~/catkin_ws
   catkin build
   

4. Run:

   rosrun spot_ros_interface  spot_ros_interface.py --username USERNAME --password PASSWORD  192.168.80.3
   

   Note: Spot's default IP address is 192.168.80.3 over WiFi, 10.0.0.3 over the back ethernet port, and 192.168.50.3 for the front GXP port.

With the ROS wrapper running, open a new terminal and run keyboard_teleop.py in the spot_ros_interface ROS package:

rosrun spot_ros_interface keyboard_teleop.py

and follow the instructions on screen.

Ensure spot_ros_interface.py is running.

Note: If Spot is in a faulty state and/or upside down, make sure to call the self-right command first (from the keyboard_teleop application, press "r").

roslaunch spot_urdf rviz_display.launch

Potential Issues:

• Spot model RViz visualization is white and not oriented properly

  • Solution: Ensure spot_ros_interface and robot_state_publisher nodes are running (the latter should have started by the rvis_display.launch file).

• The occupancy grid is not being displayed:

  • Solution: Ensure that RViz is set to display a Marker type msg (on the left-hand panel), and that it is subscribed to the occupancy_grid topic.

1. Stand up:

   rosservice call /stand_cmd '{body_pose: {translation: {x: 0, y: 0, z: 0}, rotation: {x: 0, y: 0, z: 0, w: 1} } }'
   

2. Drive forward slowly:

   rostopic pub /cmd_vel geometry_msgs/Twist -r 10 '{linear: {x: 0.15, y: 0, z: 0}, angular: {x: 0, y: 0, z: 0}}'
   

3. Sit

   rosservice call /sit_cmd True
   

ROS package guidelines

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