Spot ROS2 Driver

Overview

This is a ROS2 package for BostonDynamics' Spot. The package contains all necessary topics, services and actions to teleoperate or navigate Spot. This package is derived of this ROS1 package. This package currently corresponds to version 3.2.0 of the spot-sdk

Prerequisites

- Tested for Ubuntu 22.04 + Humble

Install

In your ROS2 workspace src directory, clone the repo:

git clone https://github.com/bdaiinstitute/spot_ros2.git

and initialize and install the submodules

cd spot_ros2
git submodule init
git submodule update

Then run the install script. The install script takes the optional argument --arm64; it otherwise defaults to an AMD64 install. Run the correct command based on your system

cd <path to spot_ros2>
./install_spot_ros2.sh
or
./install_spot_ros2.sh --arm64

From here, set up the ROS2 workspace

cd <ros2 ws>
source /opt/ros/humble/setup.bash
colcon build --symlink-install
source install/local_setup.bash

Example Code

See the examples for some examples of using the ROS2 driver.

Launch

The spot login data hostname, username and password can either be specified as ROS parameters or as environment variables. If using ROS parameters, see spot_driver/config/spot_ros_example.yaml for an example of what your file could look like. If using environment variables, define BOSDYN_CLIENT_USERNAME, BOSDYN_CLIENT_PASSWORD, and SPOT_IP.

Model

ros2 launch spot_description description.launch.py

SpotDriver

ros2 launch spot_driver spot_driver.launch.py [config_file:=<path to your ROS config file>] [has_arm:=<True|False>] [spot_name:=<Name of Spot running the driver>] [launch_rviz:=<True|False>] 

Depth image to Pointcloud2

ros2 launch spot_driver point_cloud_xyz.launch.py

Command Line Example Node

The command_spot_driver node contains service and action clients. To send a trajectory goal execute:

ros2 run spot_driver command_spot --ros-args -p command:=trajectory

Spot CAM Usage

Due to known issues with the Spot CAM, it is disabled by default. To enable publishing and usage over the driver, add the following command in your configuration YAML file: initialize_spot_cam: True

Spot CAM Known Issues

The Spot CAM payload has known issues with the SSL certification process in https. If you get the following errors:

Then you want to log into the Spot CAM over the browser. In your browser, type in:

https://<ip_address_of_spot>:<sdp_port>/h264.sdp.html

The default port for SDP is 31102 for the Spot CAM. Once inside, you will be prompted to log in using your username and password. Do so and the WebRTC frames should begin to properly stream.

Multiple Robots

If you want to use multiple robots, use the spot_driver_with_namespace launch file:

ros2 launch spot_driver_with_namespace.py spot_name:=<spot name> config_file:=<path to your ROS config file>

This will launch all nodes in the spot_name namespace and use spot_name/ as the prefix for all frames.

Advanced Install

Install spot_msgs as a deb package

spot_msgs are normally compiled as part of this repository. If you would prefer to install them as a debian package, follow the steps below:

wget -q -O /tmp/ros-humble-spot-msgs_0.0.0-0jammy_amd64.deb https://github.com/bdaiinstitute/spot_ros2/releases/download/spot_msgs-v0.0-0/ros-humble-spot-msgs_0.0.0-0jammy_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i /tmp/ros-humble-spot-msgs_0.0.0-0jammy_amd64.deb
rm /tmp/ros-humble-spot-msgs_0.0.0-0jammy_amd64.deb

Install bosdyn_msgs from source

The bosdyn_msgs package is installed as a debian package as part of the install_spot_ros2 script because it's very large. It can be checked out from source here and then built as a normal ROS2 package if that is preferred (compilation takes about 15 minutes).

License

MIT license - parts of the code developed specifically for ROS2. BSD3 license - parts of the code derived from the Clearpath Robotics ROS1 driver.

Contributing

To contribute, install pre-commit via pip, run pre-commit install and then run pre-commit run --all-files to verify that your code will pass inspection.

git clone https://github.com/bdaiinstitute/spot_ros2.git
cd spot_ros2
pip3 install pre-commit
pre-commit install
pre-commit run --all-files

Now whenever you commit code to this repository, it will be checked against our pre-commit hooks. You can also run git commit --no-verify if you wish you commit without checking against the hooks.

Contributors

This project is a collaboration between the Mobile Autonomous Systems & Cognitive Robotics Institute (MASKOR) at FH Aachen and the Boston Dynamics AI Institute.

MASKOR contributors:

• Maximillian Kirsch
• Shubham Pawar
• Christoph Gollok
• Stefan Schiffer
• Alexander Ferrein

Boston Dynamics AI Institute contributors:

• Jenny Barry
• Daniel Gonzalez
• Tao Pang
• David Surovik
• Jiuguang Wang
• David Watkins

Linköping University contributors:

• Tommy Persson