Fiducial Floor Follow

#1

hi, the link below is broken, i would like to beta test it, but the code does not exist in the git repository. can you release for testing?
https://github.com/UbiquityRobotics/demos/tree/followPlusCommands/fiducial_follow

#2

Sorry about that. I had re-nammed the branch in our demos repository from followPlusCommands to now be floor_follow so the same branch name could be used on the magni_robot repository.

The broken link is at this time now: https://github.com/UbiquityRobotics/demos/tree/floor_follow/fiducial_follow

#3

thanks!! I really appreciate it. I will begin the testing…

#4

We are considering some changes in how we structure the python node itself at this time.

What we are now feeling is correct camera placement is to have the camera point 45 degrees downward from a height of the camera lens of 55cm above the floor. I attach a simple mount based on a piece of thin wood for you to look into. To do this scheme requires that you obtain a much longer camera cable. In this picture I am using a 50cm long cable. As an electrical engineer I am going to look into this sort of length because it does worry me to some extent. At this time in my unit it seems to lead to no issues so that is one aspect.

FloorFollowSimpleWoodProtoMount
FloorFollowSimpleWoodProtoMount.jpg2000×2667 833 KB

Be aware that you also need magni_robot repository in it’s own floor_follow branch as besides the launch file that also contains the proper URDF model that contains the ‘downward’ raspicam pose.

#5

We have just made a decision to do some changes to the node itself. We are going to re-structure the python script for the floor follow so that it is more standard for ROS. We will convert over the node so it is an ActionLib based node and will form a new node rather than try to put all this new functionality into the old follow.py python script. This will make it cleaner but more importantly will make it use the standard acceptable actionlib approach and that too will make this node more powerful as well as cleaner in the code.

So if you mess with floor follow right now do so to get the feel for this approach of navigation and keep in mind the ‘engine under the hood’ will be updated very soon. I will shoot for a couple weeks as my timeframe to do the converstion of the node.