ScoutSoftware

About

This page presents instructions and software for our customized versions of Nomadic Scouts. This customization was performed by IdMind and includes new electronics. These platforms include a nowadays obsolete Pentium III motherboard, and so it is only appropriate to run the ROS drivers for the hardware (motors and sensors). So the suggested architecture is to use an external laptop for the main software, connecting via a ethernet cable the platform motherboard. The driver nodes can be remotely launched using roslaunch.

Software

The source code can be found here: ros_scout-1.0.tgz.

It comprises these packages:

• scout_drivers -- contains the main drivers
• scout_msgs -- defines the message types employed by the drivers
• joy -- a copy of the joy package compatible with the Scout software

The drivers in scout_drivers include three nodes:

• motors -- interfaces the motor controllers: sends motor velocity commands and receives encoder readings
• sensors -- interfaces the sonars (currently disabled) and the battery sensors
• joydrive -- node to control the robot using a gamepad