Drivers

SIG Organization

This SIG has been operating continuously for several ROS releases. Please join us if you are interested and can contribute. The SIG page lists membership and mailing list information.

Proposed new features

• Eliminate packaging impediments to writing drivers with minimal dependencies. It should be possible to release driver stacks that can run on headless systems without installing heavy dependencies like X11.

  • Separate GUI dependencies from geometry stack (<<Ticket(ros-pkg 5439)>>).

    • Migration to tf2 is the preferred solution

      • Not necessary any more, tf dependencies are minimal with catkin

  • Enable basic sensor_msgs/PointCloud2 generation using only minimal PCL components.

• Migration to catkin
  • The dependencies of many drivers were catkinized for Groovy
  • Hydro is a good time to convert many of these drivers

• camera_drivers

  • Camera namespace changes (Chad): REP-0135 approved.

  • camera1394 catkinized (issue #1).

• hokuyo_node

  • Catkinized and releasing as stand-alone package (no more laser_drivers)
    • Done.
  • Need to remove REP 117 Tick Tock

• sicktoolbox_wrapper

  • Catkinized and releasing as stand-alone package (no more laser_drivers)
    • Done
  • Need to remove REP 117 Tick Tock

• sicktoolbox

  • Forked and Catkinized. Upgraded to version 1.01.

• urg_node

  • First release - needs testing as a drop in replacement for hokuyo_node.

  • Needs to have diagnostics

    • Not happening for Hydro

• microstrain_3dmgx2_imu

  • Catkinized and releasing as stand-alone package (no more imu_drivers)
• Driver Namespace REP

  • Pull request: https://github.com/ros-infrastructure/rep/pull/22]

    • Approved.
• Driver ROS API REPs:
  • Laser

    • Pull request: https://github.com/ros-infrastructure/rep/pull/25

      • Approved

  • IMU

    • Not started, waiting for response on gps.

      • Sometime in the future

  • GPS

    • Pull request: https://github.com/ros-infrastructure/rep/pull/31

      • Holding off until Satellite information can be better published.

  • Camera

    • Not started, waiting for response on gps.

      • Sometime in the future

  • Joystick

    • Not started, waiting for response on gps.

      • Sometime in the future

• laser_proc

  • Basic functionality there. Released.

• graft

  • Sensor fusion replacement for robot_pose_ekf, likely to be a UKF and support globally referenced and differential measurement updates.

  • Implementation prototyped in Eigen.
  • May be released mid-Hydro

• imu_proc

  • Not yet started, talking with Ivan Dryanovski and Seb Madgwick about licensing imu_filter_madgwick as BSD.

  • Not going to release in Hydro, haven't heard about licensing.

• gps_drivers

  • Update nmea_gps_driver to read from a string topic for more compatibility (see https://github.com/ros-drivers/nmea_gps_driver/issues/1)

  • Migrate to Github https://github.com/ros-drivers/nmea_gps_driver

  • gpsd_client isn't on Github. Need to ask Ken to move it.
  • Catkinize.

  • Remove gps_drivers metapackage/meta-stack