ROS 2 - NAV2 - Build and Launch a robot by a URDF (Unified Robot Description Format)

The robot display ok on RViz (ROS Visualization), 3D visualization, by our URDF

The URDF that we will use is

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<robot name="sam_bot" xmlns:xacro="http://ros.org/wiki/xacro">

  <!-- Define robot constants -->
  <xacro:property name="base_width" value="0.31"/>
  <xacro:property name="base_length" value="0.42"/>
  <xacro:property name="base_height" value="0.18"/>

  <xacro:property name="wheel_radius" value="0.10"/>
  <xacro:property name="wheel_width" value="0.04"/>
  <xacro:property name="wheel_ygap" value="0.025"/>
  <xacro:property name="wheel_zoff" value="0.05"/>
  <xacro:property name="wheel_xoff" value="0.12"/>

  <xacro:property name="caster_xoff" value="0.14"/>

  <!-- Robot Base -->
  <link name="base_link">
    <visual>
      <geometry>
        <box size="${base_length} ${base_width} ${base_height}"/>
      </geometry>
      <material name="Cyan">
        <color rgba="0 1.0 1.0 1.0"/>
      </material>
    </visual>
  </link>
 
  <!-- Robot Footprint -->
  <link name="base_footprint"/>

  <joint name="base_joint" type="fixed">
    <parent link="base_link"/>
    <child link="base_footprint"/>
    <origin xyz="0.0 0.0 ${-(wheel_radius+wheel_zoff)}" rpy="0 0 0"/>
  </joint>
 
    <!-- Wheels -->
  <xacro:macro name="wheel" params="prefix x_reflect y_reflect">
    <link name="${prefix}_link">
      <visual>
        <origin xyz="0 0 0" rpy="${pi/2} 0 0"/>
        <geometry>
            <cylinder radius="${wheel_radius}" length="${wheel_width}"/>
        </geometry>
        <material name="Gray">
          <color rgba="0.5 0.5 0.5 1.0"/>
        </material>
      </visual>
    </link>

    <joint name="${prefix}_joint" type="continuous">
      <parent link="base_link"/>
      <child link="${prefix}_link"/>
      <origin xyz="${x_reflect*wheel_xoff} ${y_reflect*(base_width/2+wheel_ygap)} ${-wheel_zoff}" rpy="0 0 0"/>
      <axis xyz="0 1 0"/>
    </joint>
  </xacro:macro>

  <xacro:wheel prefix="drivewhl_l" x_reflect="-1" y_reflect="1" />
  <xacro:wheel prefix="drivewhl_r" x_reflect="-1" y_reflect="-1" />
 
  <!-- Caster Wheel -->
  <link name="front_caster">
    <visual>
      <geometry>
        <sphere radius="${(wheel_radius+wheel_zoff-(base_height/2))}"/>
      </geometry>
      <material name="Cyan">
        <color rgba="0 1.0 1.0 1.0"/>
      </material>
    </visual>
  </link>

  <joint name="caster_joint" type="fixed">
    <parent link="base_link"/>
    <child link="front_caster"/>
    <origin xyz="${caster_xoff} 0.0 ${-(base_height/2)}" rpy="0 0 0"/>
  </joint>

</robot>



The URDF file location of ROS 2 workspace  

The URDF file is written for the robot 

Add dependencies to package.xml of the our project workspace

Launch files are used by ROS 2 to bring up the necessary nodes for our package: The launch file below launches a robot publisher node in ROS 2 that uses our URDF to publish the transforms for our robot. In addition, the launch file also automatically launches RVIZ so we can visualize our robot as defined by the URDF.

RVIz config file that will be loaded when we launch our package. This configuration file initializes RVIz with the proper settings so we can view the robot immediately once it launches.

Modify CMakLists.txt install(DIRECTORY src launch rviz ...) 

colcon build . install/setup.bash OK

ros2 launch thomas_bot_description display.launch.py 

Our Robot is displayed on RViz (ROS Visualization), 3D visualization, by our URDF look like

Clip to browse on the robot

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