Programming Robots with ROS

Want to develop novel robot applications, but don’t know how to write a mapping or object recognition system? You’re certainly not alone, but you’re not without help. By combining real-world examples with valuable knowledge from the Robot Operating System (ROS) community, this practical book provides a set of motivating recipes for solving specific robotics use cases.

Ideal for wide range of robot enthusiasts, from students in robotics clubs to professional robotics scientists and engineers, each recipe describes a complete solution using ROS open source libraries and tools. You’ll not only learn how to complete the task described in the recipe, but also how to configure and recombine the components for other tasks. All recipes include Python code.

No robot hardware is required to get started, just experience with Python and Linux. This book is appropriate for undergraduate and graduate students in introductory robotics courses.

Table of Contents

Part I. Fundamentals
Chapter 1. Introduction
Chapter 2. Preliminaries
Chapter 3. Topics
Chapter 4. Services
Chapter 5. Actions
Chapter 6. Robots and Simulators
Chapter 7. Wander-bot

Part II. Moving Around Using ROS
Chapter 8. Teleop-bot
Chapter 9. Building Maps of the World
Chapter 10. Navigating About the World
Chapter 11. Chess-bot

Part III. Perception and Behavior
Chapter 12. Follow-bot
Chapter 13. On Patrol
Chapter 14. Stockroom-bot

Part IV. Bringing Your Own Stuff into ROS
Chapter 15. Your Own Sensors and Actuators
Chapter 16. Your Own Mobile Robot
Chapter 17. Your Own Mobile Robot: Part 2
Chapter 18. Your Own Robot Arm
Chapter 19. Adding a Software Library

Part V. Tips and Tricks
Chapter 20. Tools
Chapter 21. Debugging Robot Behavior
Chapter 22. The ROS Community: Online Resources
Chapter 23. Using C++ in ROS