Really Useful Robot

A ROS-based two-wheeled mobile robot with a lidar that can map and navigate indoors, with an open-source Gazebo simulation.

This repository has no photo of the robot yet.

3D preview converted from github.com/XRobots/ReallyUsefulRobot at b3bb368, under MIT. View the original files from GitHub (4.0 MB) (opens in a new tab)

What it can do

Written by Robotheca from the project's documents.

Drives on two wheels powered by brushless motors through an ODrive controller, following velocity commands on the cmd_vel topic.
Publishes odometry and transform data from wheel encoders so its motion can be tracked.
Uses a 2D lidar to build maps with gmapping and navigate autonomously with the ROS navigation stack.
Can be teleoperated from a keyboard and simulated in Gazebo using the same topics as the real robot.

This repository has no parts list Robotheca can read yet.

The guide appears here as you scroll.

Guide by @XRobots (README.md), under MIT.

Notes written by Robotheca from the project's documents.

Teensy 4.1 microcontroller that reads the wheel encoders and talks to the ODrive.
NVIDIA Xavier NX running Ubuntu 18.04 with ROS Melodic.
6374 150Kv BLDC motors with 8192 CPR encoders.
ODrive 3.6 motor controller rated for 56V.
RPLIDAR A2 laser scanner.
24V LiPo battery and 11.1V LiPo battery with switches and wiring.

Buildable with some effort

How complete the published files are for rebuilding this robot, measured by Robotheca at commit b3bb368. It isn't a rating of the robot.

3D and CAD files20/20
23 printable parts (STL, 3MF), 1 CAD source file.
Robot description0/15
No URDF.
Add a URDF: the robot can then be seen in 3D and tried in the browser.
Parts list0/20
No parts list in the repository or linked.
Most points to gain: Link to your parts list, or add it to the repository (a CSV or a Markdown table) with quantities, prices and where to buy each part.
Software15/15
Code in this repository, instructions to install or run it, built on ros.
Documentation5/15
README of 9,226 characters with 0 pictures; 0 build steps.
Split the build into at least 3 steps. Show the robot and its assembly in pictures in the README.
Simulation5/5
19 simulation files (MuJoCo, Gazebo, Webots or Isaac).
Licenses10/10
Hardware: MIT; software: MIT.

Written by Robotheca from the project's documents.

Install ROS Melodic and the navigation and slam_gmapping packages on the workstation, then run rosdep to install dependencies.
Build the rur and rur_description packages on the robot and launch everything with rur_bringup.launch.
Start gmapping on the workstation with rosrun gmapping slam_gmapping scan:=scan, then add topics in Rviz and save the map with map_saver.
Launch rur_navigation.launch with the saved map file to run autonomous navigation.
For simulation, build the workspace with catkin_make, then launch rur_gazebo rur_house.launch and rur_detailed_description display.launch.

Robotheca doesn't review code. Read it before running it.

Every file of the project: code, CAD, electronics, guides, at commit b3bb368.

Questions and improvements go to the creator's repository.