Installation and use

Installation

Installation over Ubuntu 18.04:

ROS Melodic: Desktop-Full Install recommended, includes Gazebo 9.0.0 (http://wiki.ros.org/melodic/Installation/Ubuntu).
Gazebo 9.0.0

Full ROS package:

 sudo apt install ros-melodic-desktop-full

More packages:

sudo apt-get install                     \
python-pip python3-vcstool python3-pyqt4 \
pyqt5-dev-tools                          \
libbluetooth-dev libspnav-dev            \
pyqt4-dev-tools libcwiid-dev             \
cmake gcc g++ qt4-qmake libqt4-dev       \
libusb-dev libftdi-dev                   \
python3-defusedxml python3-vcstool       \
ros-melodic-octomap-msgs                 \
ros-melodic-joy                          \
ros-melodic-geodesy                      \
ros-melodic-octomap-ros                  \
ros-melodic-control-toolbox              \
ros-melodic-pluginlib	                 \
ros-melodic-trajectory-msgs              \
ros-melodic-control-msgs                 \
ros-melodic-std-srvs 	                 \
ros-melodic-nodelet                      \
ros-melodic-urdf                         \
ros-melodic-rviz                         \
ros-melodic-kdl-conversions              \
ros-melodic-eigen-conversions            \
ros-melodic-tf2-sensor-msgs              \
ros-melodic-pcl-ros                      \
ros-melodic-navigation                   \
ros-melodic-sophus                       \
python-rviz

Add the setup.bash file to your .bashrc:

echo "source /opt/ros/melodic/setup.bash" >> ~/.bashrc

Create a virtualenv

virtualenv -p python3 gym-gazebo-env

Activate the virtual environment:

source gym-gazebo-env/bin/activate

Install Python Packages:

pip install -r requirements

Install gym-gazebo

cd ~
git clone https://github.com/RoboticsLabURJC/2019-tfm-ignacio-arranz.git
cd gym-gazebo

Run bash files, build the ROS workspace:

cd gym-gazebo/gym_gazebo/envs/installation
bash setup_melodic.bash

Usage

Build and install gym-gazebo

In the root directory of the repository:

pip install -e .

Configure ROS environment executing the following script (actually using ROS melodic):

bash setup_melodic.bash

Running an environment

Load the environment variables corresponding to the robot you want to launch. E.g. to load the Formula 1:

cd gym_gazebo/envs/installation
bash formula1_setup.bash

Note: all the setup scripts are available in gym_gazebo/envs/installation

Run any of the examples available in examples/. E.g.:

cd examples/f1
python f1_follow_line_camera.py

Display the simulation

To see what’s going on in Gazebo during a simulation, run gazebo client. In order to launch the gzclient and be able to connect it to the running gzserver:

Open a new terminal.
Source the corresponding setup script, which will update the GAZEBO_MODEL_PATH variable: e.g. source setup_turtlebot.bash
Export the GAZEBO_MASTER_URI, provided by the gazebo_env. You will see that variable printed at the beginning of every script execution. e.g. export GAZEBO_MASTER_URI=http://localhost:11311

Finally, launch gzclient.

gzclient

Also, you can see the F1 camera using rviz + ros_topic like this:

rosrun image_view image_view image:=/F1ROS/cameraL/image_raw

Killing background processes

Sometimes, after ending or killing the simulation gzserver and rosmaster stay on the background, make sure you end them before starting new tests.

We recommend creating an alias to kill those processes.

echo "alias killgazebogym='killall -9 rosout roslaunch rosmaster gzserver nodelet robot_state_publisher gzclient'" >> ~/.bashrc

You can also run a script that stops the processes, in the scripts folder:

gym_gazebo/scripts/stop.sh

Nacho Arranz