November 2009 Archives

simulator_gazebo 0.6.1

simulator_gazebo 0.6.1 has been released with some patches to fix bugs in include guards. This release adds custom callback queue for the remaining of the plugins in gazebo plugins except for sim time publisher. GazeboRosF3D plugin now broadcasts both force and torque acting on a body using the WrenchStamped message.

Other changes:

• removed joint force plugin

robot_model 0.6.4

We just released the 0.6.4 version of the robot model stack. Much like the last release of simulator_gazebo 0.6.1, this release changes how we deal with the world link in a tree. The robot state publisher no longer ignores the world link when it publishes to tf. The urdf package also got a visualizer tool to visualize the robot tree.

Other changes:

• urdf
  • add visualizer tool for urdf tree
  • root link is always optional, not only when it is called "world"
  • fix bug where sphere init always fails
• robot_state_publisher
  • Also publish the transform from the root link to its children
  • Only warn once when the tree that is provided contains fewer than two segments.
• kdl_parser
  • add check_kdl_parser tool to verify parsing of urdf file
• convex_decomposition:
  • add unzip as dependency

Download

• http://www.ros.org/download/stacks/common/robot_model-0.6.4.tar.bz2
• http://www.ros.org/download/stacks/simulator_gazebo/simulator_gazebo-0.6.1.tar.bz2

In conjunction with the ROS 0.10 release, several ROS stacks have been released with compatibility updates and other changes.

common 0.7.1

The common 0.7.1 patches several issues with xacro:

• Added a flag for only evaluating include tags in xacro
• Allowing multiple blocks and multiple insert_blocks, fixing #3322 and #3323

common_msgs 0.9.6

common_msgs 0.9.6 contains a new sensor_msgs/SetCameraInfo service and updates to nav_msgs/OccupancyGrid.

• nav_msgs:
  • Changed nav_msgs/OccupancyGrid to use int8 instead of deprecated byte (no code changes necessary it was an alias)
  • Updated migration rules to handle migration of nav_msgs/OccupancyGrid since md5sum changed.
• sensor_msgs: Added service sensor_msgs/SetCameraInfo
• Removed improperly added srv directory in root of stack.

geometry 0.4.4

The geometry 0.4.4 release patches several issues with tf and upgrades the version of eigen to 2.0.9:

• tf: fixed usage of python to_seconds to to_sec
• tf: fixed commandline parsing in view_frames for hudson build
• tf: fixed ~ param usage in change_notifier
• eigen: Upgraded to version 2.0.9

visualization 0.4.1

This is a minor patch release that fixes parsing orientation out of a URDF (thanks Lorenz).

simulator_stage 0.10.0

With the simulator_stage 0.10.0 release, robot link base_laser has been changed to base_laser_link to stay consistent with naming conventions of all other PR2 robot links (except frames). Please note that you will need wg-ros-pkg trunk r26633+ to work with this release.

simulator_gazebo 0.6.0

With the simulator_gazebo 0.6.0 release, the main API change is that the urdf2gazebo converter tool does not skip the first link if it's not the special "world"-link. Other changes in this release:

• added custom callback queues for imu, p3d, bumper, camera, laser plugins
• fix bumper, publish once per update call
• change fixed axis pseudo-hinge joint to z-axis for better stability (heuristics)
• support removal of world link from urdf

Download

• http://www.ros.org/download/stacks/common/common-0.7.1.tar.bz2
• http://www.ros.org/download/stacks/common_msgs/common_msgs-0.9.6.tar.bz2
• http://www.ros.org/download/stacks/geometry/geometry-0.4.4.tar.bz2
• http://www.ros.org/download/stacks/visualization/visualization-0.4.1.tar.bz2
• http://www.ros.org/download/stacks/simulator_stage/simulator_stage-0.10.0.tar.bz2
• http://www.ros.org/download/stacks/simulator_gazebo/simulator_gazebo-0.6.0.tar.bz2

In conjunction with the ROS 0.10 release, several ROS stacks have been released with compatibility updates and other changes.

common 0.7.0

The common 0.7.0 release introduces experimental python versions of both the ActionServer and SimpleActionServer. The API for the code mirrors that of the stable C++ code, so you should expect a fair amount of stability at the API level there, but the code is only lightly tested so there are bound to be some bugs to flush out. This release also fixes a number of deprectation warnings introduced by ROS 0.10.0.

• Adding a blocking call for sending goals (actionlib::SimpleActionClient::sendGoalAndWait). This feature is still unstable & experimental
• Added a shutdown method to the actionlib::SimpleActionServer allowing users to explicitly tell the server to shutdown
• No longer relying on header.stamp fields to autofill with ros::Time::now() (in both C++ and Python).
• Fixed race condition in C++ client causing spurious "Tried to create a handle to a list elem with refcount 0" errors
• Created a Python action server and simple action server, mirroring the functionality of the C++ [simple] action server. This feature is still unstable & experimental.
• Adding explicit copy constructor and equals operator to ServerGoal

navigation 0.6.2

navigation 0.6.2 is a patch release that has some minor bug fixes and gets rid of deprecation warnings that came along with ROS 0.10.0. There is also a patch to robot_post_ekf that fixex a crash when the covariance is zero.

simulator_stage 0.9.1

The simulator_stage 0.9.1 release switches simulator time message type from roslib::Time to roslib::Clock.

simulator_gazebo 0.5.0

The simulator_gazebo 0.5.0 release has some minor bug fixes and switches simulator time message type from roslib::Time to roslib::Clock. Additionally:

• player CMake variable fix https://code.ros.org/trac/ros-pkg/ticket/3290
• reworked contact feedback messages.
• fix LD_LIBRARY_PATHs for setup.tcsh and setup.bash

Download

• http://www.ros.org/download/stacks/common/common-0.7.0.tar.bz2
• http://www.ros.org/download/stacks/navigation/navigation-0.6.2.tar.bz2
• http://www.ros.org/download/stacks/simulator_stage/simulator_stage-0.9.1.tar.bz2
• http://www.ros.org/download/stacks/simulator_gazebo/simulator_gazebo-0.5.0.tar.bz2

robot_model 0.6.3 has been released. This release fixes a number of bugs in the 0.6.2 stable release. The changes are limited to the urdf and kdl_parser pacakges.

Changes

• kdl_parser

  • Fix bug where kdl parser was not using inertia from urdf
  • Add regression test for inertia parsing

• urdf

  • Make all "get" methods const
  • Give better error message when no links were found
  • Generate parse error when visual, collision or inertial is specified but fails to parse

Download

• http://www.ros.org/download/stacks/robot_model/robot_model-0.6.3.tar.bz2

ROS 0.10 has been released. The focus of this release is preparing ROS for a 1.0 release. We have been making final reviews of the ROS APIs to address any essential feature gaps, API inconsistencies, and deprecations. Documentation is also being improved and reviewed. Final deprecations prior to 1.0 are described on the roadmap and are either being made in this release or 0.11.

There were many other changes with this release as we work to improve and finalize the ROS feature set. You can find a complete list in the changelist.

You can download a tarball of the release, though we recommend that you start with the ROS installation instructions instead.

simulator_gazebo 0.4.2 has been released. The 0.4.2 releases contains patches for some additional bug fixes as mentioned in the change list: urdf2gazebo had a gimbal lock problem, joint axis transforms were missing and new model spawning tool. "gazebo_model" has been added, due to replace "spawn_gazebo_model".

Download

• http://www.ros.org/download/stacks/simulator_gazebo/simulator_gazebo-0.4.2.tar.bz2

simulator_gazebo 0.3.0 has been released. This release contains patches for bug fixes as mentioned in the change list. Consolidation from other packages and some cleaning up were done for the default worlds and object models in gazebo_worlds. ROS time publisher for simulation time has been moved from PR2 robot description into the world. Non-PR2 specific Gazebo plugins from the unreleased pr2_simulator stack (originally under package pr2_gazebo_plugins) has been migrated into the simulator_gazebo stack under a new package named gazebo_plugins. Most/all of the changes should be transparent to end-users.

Download

• http://www.ros.org/download/stacks/simulator_gazebo/simulator_gazebo-0.3.0.tar.bz2

navigation 0.6.1 has been released. This is a patch release that fixes some bugs unearthed in the process of making sure the move_base node passes valgrind cleanly.

Minor Updates

• costmap_2d: Added an example launch file that is up-to-date

Bug Fixes

• nav_core: Destructors of the interfaces weren't virtual, causing all sorts of memory problems on shutdown of nodes. This is now fixed.
• rotate_recovery: Added missing cleanup of a pointer on destruction.
• move_base: Switched action server to be a pointer to avoid a race condition that will be fixed in trunk of common, but can be worked around.
• move_base: Ran valgrind on the move_base node and got it passing cleanly.

Download

• http://www.ros.org/download/stacks/navigation/navigation-0.6.1.tar.bz2

geometry 0.4.3 has just been released. This is a patch release. One assert was replaced with in code error handling and one function has been deprecated in favor of using a constructor inline (see below) .

Changes

tf

• waitForTransform removed Assert, errors are now reported using return code and error string.
• Deprecating sendTransform(tf::Transform, . . . ) due to backwards argument order. Replace call with sendTransform(tf::StampedTransform. . . ) Also fixing regression in 0.4.1 in that function.
  • b.sendTransform(transform, time, frameid, parentid); becomes b.sendTransform(tf::StampedTransform(transform, time, parentid, frameid));

Download

• http://www.ros.org/download/stacks/geometry/geometry-0.4.3.tar.bz2

navigation 0.6.0 has just been released. This release makes the recovery behaviors the navigation stack invokes when planning fails plugin based. This means that users of the move_base node now have the flexibility to write recovery behaviors that are appropriate for their robot. Documentation on how to configure the navigation stack to use these plugins can be found here, and two example recovery behaviors can be found here and here. These changes are all backwards compatible, so if you've been satisfied with the default recovery behaviors, they'll contiunue to work as they have in the past.

Full Changelist

New Features

• move_base: Made the recovery behaviors that the navigation stack uses plugins so that users of the move_base node have more flexibility in how the robot behaves when planning fails. All the changes to the navigation stack are backwards compatible.
• clear_costmap_recovery: Added this recovery behavior as a default plugin for the move_base node. Also, this package was API and Doc reviewed.
• rotate_recovery: Added this recovery behavior as a default plugin for the move_base node. Also, this package was API and Doc reviewed.
• nav_core: Added a !RecoveryBehavior interface and updated documentation accordingly.
• voxel_grid: Added a few more tests for the voxel_grid package.

Bug Fixes

• costmap_2d: Fixed build failure on Karmic/gcc4.4

Download

• http://www.ros.org/download/stacks/navigation/navigation-0.6.0.tar.bz2

visualization 0.4.0 has been released. This release is heavily focused on usability, and specifically on being able to easily debug what is going wrong when data is not showing up. The largest change in this regard is the addition of status elements in the "Displays" tree. These should show you if something is going wrong and attempt to heuristically diagnose what the problem is.

There are also a number of other changes, such as help text for each item in the displays tree.

The per-display documentation has also been filled out for all built-in displays, with video and property descriptions.

Full Changelist

Download

• http://www.ros.org/download/stacks/visualization/visualization-0.4.0.tar.bz2

image_common-0.5.2 has been released. This is a patch release with bug fixes and gcc 4.4 support; usage has not changed.

Changes

• image_transport:
  • Fixed bug in connection callbacks that sometimes caused a segfault.
  • Publisher now throws if it fails to load any plugins.
  • Got rid of deprecation warning from getSubscriberCallerID.
• camera_calibration_parsers:
  • Fix for gcc 4.4.

Download

• http://www.ros.org/download/stacks/image_common/image_common-0.5.2.tar.bz2

Fast on the heels of the Brown Nao driver, Armin Hornung of Albert-Ludwigs-Unversität Freiburg has announced joy-package compatibility and torso odometry additions for the Nao driver -- as well as the alufr-ros-pkg repository. Armin's announcement is below.

Based on the recently announced Nao driver by Brown University, there is now a regular joystick teleoperation node available. It operates Nao using messages from the "joy" topic, so it should work with any gamepad or joystick in ROS. In addition, the control node running on Nao returns some basic torso odometry estimate. The code is available at http://code.google.com/p/alufr-ros-pkg/ to checkout via SVN. A README with more details can be found in the "nao" stack there.

I'm open for feedback and suggestions!

-- Armin

We've released diagnostics 0.3.0. This release is the first stable release for the diagnostic_aggregator and includes numerous bug fixes for the robot_monitor and other tools. The runtime_monitor monitor tool was renamed from "wxmonitor.py" to "monitor.py", so you should now invoke it with rosrun runtime_monitor monitor.py.

Changes

• diagnostic_aggregator
  • GenericAnalyzer has been completely redone, with subclassable base GenericAnalyzerBase
  • New OtherAnalyzer handles remaining diagnostic messages
  • API change for Analyzers, fully API reviewed
  • Stable API, all changes will have deprecation period from now on
  • Updated doxygen
  • Removed xmlrpc++ dependency
  • Regression test
• robot_monitor
  • Fixed "has_message" function for pr2_dashboard
  • Fixed annoying scrolling behavior
  • Basic regression test (smoke test)
• runtime_monitor: Basic regression tests added (smoke test)
• diagnostic_analysis: renamed from "diagnostics_analysis" for consistency with other diagnostic packages.
• diagnostic_updater/self_test: Minor documentation fixes and features. API review will be complete in 0.4.0.

Download

• http://www.ros.org/download/stacks/diagnostics/diagnostics-0.3.0.tar.bz2

physics_ode 0.2.0 and simulator_gazebo 0.2.0 have been released. physics_ode provides a rigid body physics engine for the open source Open Dynamics Engine (ODE). simulator_gazebo is a ROS wrapper for the open source Gazebo simulator (part of Player/Stage/Gazebo project). This stack also includes tools for interfacing with the simulator and a set of commonly used sample worlds and objects.

Download

• http://www.ros.org/download/stacks/physics_ode/physics_ode-0.2.0.tar.bz2
• http://www.ros.org/download/stacks/simulator_gazebo/simulator_gazebo-0.2.0.tar.bz2

Brown University has been hard at work on a developing an Aldebaran Nao driver for ROS and recently announced an open source (GPL) version to the community. The text of Trevor Jay's announcement is below.

Brown University is pleased to release a ROS driver for the Aldebaran Nao. The driver makes available: head control, text-to-speech, basic navigation, and (most interestingly) the Nao's forehead camera. Sample clients are part of the download, including a WiiMote teleop client.

Here are two videos of the driver in action (one from the robot's perspective):

The driver is available at the brown-ros-pkg download page.

If you have any problems or just find the driver useful, please let us know! We will add features as our work and the community need them.

_Trevor