Arduino Example using rosserial
This example uses the rosserial package for arduino.
After installing the package using
apt-get install ros-indigo-rosserial-arduino ros-indigo-rosserial-python
you need to configure your Arduino IDE following this tutorial.
In order to run this example you need to launch the roscore in a new terminal window:
roscore
Next, run the rosserial client application that forwards your Arduino messages to the rest of ROS. Make sure to use the correct serial port:
rosrun rosserial_python serial_node.py _port:=/dev/ttyACM0
At this point, you can look at the distance measures from your Dreamster by launching a new terminal window and entering :
rostopic echo /ultrasound
Or you can move your Dreamster by publishing velocity commands, for example moving it forward with:
rostopic pub /cmd_vel geometry_msgs/Twist '{linear: {x: 1.0, y: 0.0, z: 0.0}, angular: {x: 0.0,y: 0.0,z: 0.0 }}' -r 1
To visualize the ultrasonic sensor using RViz, first, run RViz
rosrun rviz rviz
Then run a static transform between /map and /ultrasound using:
rosrun tf static_transform_publisher 0 0 0.2 0 0 0 nav ultrasound 100
This will allow for the tf tree to be correctly populated. Then, on RViz, click on Add -> By Topic and select Range. Now you can see the ultrasonic beam on RViz.