RoboClaw ROS driver in C++

[harryman1]

request of a C++ driver version for ROS, that includes USB and UART support

[griz11]

Awesome guys. I really needed this.

[sonyccd]

Okay so update on the C++ driver.

I have made a good bit of progress but due to the fact that the developers of the Roboclaw did not provide a C++ driver for anything other than Arduino, I'm having to write it from scratch. This is not very difficult but is extremely time consuming considering the large number of functions that are needed. I'm also making sure that all of the driver code is compliant with ROS and will not interfere with other Ross knows that might be using serial. As soon as I have the C++ Roboclaw driver written the ROS C++ node should not take much longer.

[ColinHeffernan]

I actually just built one myself using the ROS serial library and modifying the existing Roboclaw C++ code. The serial library is deliberately modeled after PySerial, so It actually ended up being pretty easy to translate stuff from the Roboclaw Python code. You primarily just need to implement the write() and read() methods of the class and get rid of all the Arduino specific stuff. Aside from that a lot of the existing code can remain intact. I will post it next week once I have tested everything!

[harryman1]

Hi Colin

your contribution will be very welcome, please if you can share this it would be fantastic

Thank you

Date: Tue, 3 May 2016 08:49:52 -0700
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
CC: [email protected]; [email protected]
Subject: Re: [sonyccd/roboclaw_ros] RoboClaw ROS driver in C++ (#1)

I actually just built one myself using the ROS serial library and modifying the existing Roboclaw C++ code. The serial library is deliberately modeled after PySerial, so It actually ended up being pretty easy to translate stuff from the Roboclaw Python code. You primarily just need to implement the write() and read() methods of the class and get rid of all the Arduino specific stuff. Aside from that a lot of the existing code can remain intact. I will post it next week once I have tested everything!

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[sonyccd]

This is great! I have been swamped with finals so this makes like much easier. If you post the C++ driver I will write the C++ node to use it. I will also contact ionmc and let them know you wrote a C++ driver.

[ColinHeffernan]

I just posted a development branch so feel free to have at it. I can't actually test it until next week though, so I'll have no idea if anything works or if it is leaking memory etc... I'm pretty new to C++, so I would love any early feedback you can give. I was actually going to email them about an error in the Python library anyway, so I'll send my code along once I test and verify it next week.

[sonyccd]

This is great to hear from so many people. I am about to start using the roboclaw again so I will start pitching in with in a month or so .

[jagadeesh-nelaturu]

Can someone update on the status of the C++ library?
Thanks in advance.

[sonyccd]

Would anyone like to take this on?

I am yet again not working with the roboclaw

[csvance]

https://github.com/csvance/roboclaw

Just got SLAM working using a node I wrote in C++. It doesn't have a ton of bells and whistles yet, but Odometry and differential drive works with move_base / gmapping.

There will definitely be improvements / additions to it in the future, including support for drive systems other than differential.

[AlbertCAC]

Is there any update on the driver, does it work with ROS melodic?