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ROS tutorial by Purdue SMART lab: iRobot Create2 teleoperation and Computer Vision based bbject detection for mobile robot control.

1. Objectives

This ROS tutorial provides an overview of teleoperating (control) an iRobot create2 (roomba) mobile robot. Then, we look at ways to make use of the robot to track a ball/person using openCV algorithms. For those who do not have a creat2 robot, we also show a case of controlling a turtlebot in simulation (instead of iRobot control) in this tutorial. Additionally, this tutorial will help you learn some basics of computer vision and robot control methods in ROS.

Demonstration videos:

Please watch the videos below to see what this tutorial is expected to achieve.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyD-bbF6ts4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyD-bbF6ts4

2. Credits

This tutorial is prepared by Arabinda Samantaray (samantar@purdue.edu) and Shaocheng Luo (scluo@purdue.edu). We acknowledge the following sources which were used to prepare this tutorial:

• http://wiki.ros.org/ROS/Tutorials

• http://milq.github.io/install-opencv-ubuntu-debian/

• https://docs.opencv.org/3.3.0/d7/d8b/tutorial_py_face_detection.html

• https://www.pyimagesearch.com/2015/09/14/ball-tracking-with-opencv/

• ROS create_autonomy package summary http://wiki.ros.org/create_autonomy

• ROS driver for iRobot Create 1 and 2 https://github.com/autonomylab/create_autonomy

• ROS joy http://wiki.ros.org/joy

3. Prerequisites

A basic background of using Linux-based OS, ROS and OpenCV will be required to understand the following tutorial. If you need some help, please visit:

• http://wiki.ros.org/ROS/Tutorials

• http://files.ubuntu-manual.org/manuals/getting-started-with-ubuntu/14.04e2/en_US/screen/Getting%20Started%20with%20Ubuntu%2014.04%20-%20Second%20edition.pdf

• https://docs.opencv.org/3.0-beta/doc/py_tutorials/py_tutorials.html

• http://wiki.ros.org/rospy_tutorials/Tutorials/WritingImagePublisherSubscriber

This tutorial was tested successfully in Ubuntu 14.04, ROS-indigo with OpenCV 3.0.0.