ARM Gazebo

This package contains the Gazebo simulation used in the RoboCup ARM challenge.

Setup

Note

Skip this section if you downloaded the ARM Gazebo Virtual Machine.

• Install docker engine (not docker Desktop!!!) (tested on v. 19.03, 20.10)

  Usually, this should work

  sudo apt install docker.io

  or install from binaries https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/binaries/

  See also Post-installation steps for Linux. In particular, add your user to the docker group and log out and in again, before proceeding.

  sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

• Install docker-compose (tested on v. 1.28)

  First remove any other docker-compose file, if present (check with which docker-compose)

  Download binary file for v. 1.28.5

  cd /usr/local/bin
  sudo wget https://github.com/docker/compose/releases/download/1.28.5/docker-compose-Linux-x86_64
  sudo mv docker-compose-Linux-x86_64 docker-compose
  sudo chmod a+x docker-compose
  docker-compose -v

• Nvidia driver

  Install nvidia-docker2

  NVidia Container Toolkit

• Additional Tools

  sudo apt install gawk

Build or pull the docker image

Note

Skip this section if you downloaded the ARM Gazebo Virtual Machine.

To get the docker image you can either build it from the Dockerfile or pull it from `dockerhub'.

Option 1: Build docker image

cd docker
./build.bash

Option 2: Pull image

docker pull iocchi/arm_gazebo:latest

Run

cd docker
./run.bash [x11|nvidia|vnc]

x11 default mode uses X11 server, nvidia if you have NVidia graphic card and you installed nvidia-docker, vnc if you have problems with other modes uses a virtual xserver accessible through a web browser at http://localhost:3000/

Note

if you are using the ARM Gazebo Virtual Machine, run in standard mode ./run.bash

Explanation of the startup procedure

The script run.bash use docker-compose to start the docker containers with the configuration given in the files docker/dc_<*>.yml

To see the running docker containers, use the command

docker ps

The container armgazebo is the one that is running the ARM gazebo simulation

The container is running a tmux session. You can attach to this session with the following command

docker exec -it armgazebo tmux a

The container initialize the gazebo simulation by running the script bin/init_sim.bash. In this script you can find the commands sent to the tmux server, in particular the following windows are created:

0. gazebo simulator
1. moveit
2. rviz (command prepared but not launched),
3. scripts to spawn objects.

Note

You can create additional tmux windows with Ctrl+b c. You can detach from tmux with Ctrl+b d

If you need to restart the simulation, move to the first window of tmus (the one running gazebo), quit the simulation and other ROS nodes with 'CTRL-c' in this window, relaunch the simulator and all the ROS nodes (press the UP key to access the previous command and then ENTER).

Configure and spawn objects

Create a config file in config folder with objects described in this format

 <object_name> <type> <x> <y> <z> <yaw> <pitch> <roll>

Spawn objects from the docker container

First, enter the docker container

docker exec -it armgazebo tmux a

Then, issue the following commands to manage objects in gazebo simulator

cd ~/src/arm_gazebo/scripts
python gazebo_objects.py -a <object config file>

For example:

python gazebo_objects.py -a ../config/ARM1.txt

You can add more config files in the config folder

To reset a world, you can use the script

./reset_world.bash <object config file>

This script will first delete all the objects according to the patterns in file config/ARMd.txt and then spawn the new objects in the specified config file.

For example, this command will reset the world with the configuration ARM1.txt

./reset_world.bash ../config/ARM1.txt

For other interactions with gazebo objects, see a list of options with

python gazebo_objects.py -h

Options
-h	help
-l	list objects
-m	list available models
-a	<obj> <type> <x> <y> <z> <yaw> <pitch> <roll>|<filename>	add an object or all objects in config file
-d	<obj>|<filename>|all	   delete one object, all objects in config file, or all objects in the scene
-w	world properties
-s	<obj>	object properties and state

Rviz visualization

From the docker container

docker exec -it armgazebo tmux a

you can create a new tmux windows with Ctrl+b c and then run

cd ~/src/arm_gazebo/config
rosrun rviz rviz -d robot_camera.rviz

You can detach from tmux with Ctrl+b d

Troubleshooting

• In case of errors due to existing containers, use this command to clean them

  docker container prune -f