Introduction

The goal of this lab is to gain experience working with the mapping and navigation resources provided by ROS.

SLAM Mapping

• (OPTIONAL) Log into both a workstation and a Turtlebot netbook, and configure the ROS network as follows (These instructions are from TurtleBot Networking Setup).

  In a terminal on the netbook:

  echo export ROS_MASTER_URI=http://IP_OF_TURTLEBOT:11311 >> ~/.bashrc
  echo export ROS_HOSTNAME=IP_OF_TURTLEBOT >> ~/.bashrc
  source ~/.bashrc
  

  In a terminal on the workstation:

  echo export ROS_MASTER_URI=http://IP_OF_TURTLEBOT:11311 >> ~/.bashrc
  echo export ROS_HOSTNAME=IP_OF_WORKSTATION >> ~/.bashrc
  source ~/.bashrc
  

• Complete the SLAM Map Building with TurtleBot tutorial from the ROS wiki.

  Download and use this launch file: gmapping_demo.launch instead of the default version. (This version saves some processing power by not starting the navigation code.)

  Try to create the best map of the lab that you can manage. Note that these tutorials assume that you will be running the mapping code on the Turtlebot and the visualization on a separate machine. If you didn't complete the previous step, just run everything directly on the netbook.

• Take a minute to look over the map files you created in the previous step. You should be able to open /tmp/my_map.pgm in an image editor and you should be able to open /tmp/my_map.yaml in a text editor.
• Submit both /tmp/my_map.pgm and /tmp/my_map.yaml through Canvas.

Navigation (If You Have Time)

• Complete the Autonomous Navigation of a Known Map with TurtleBot tutorial from the ROS wiki.