Final Project

Dependencies

The following packages must be installed to run this code:

1. os (std lib)
2. cv2
3. time (std lib)
4. math (std lib)
5. queue (std lib)
6. heapq (std lib)
7. operator (std lib)
8. numpy as np (std lib)

All libraries are standard python libraries (other than opencv).
Please further note that the "main.py" python script imports the other scripts. Therefore, they must be kept in the same directory.

To run the code, change the directory to path_planning folder i.e.

cd your_path/path_planning_robot_maze/src/path_planning

OR

source your_path/path_planning_robot_maze/devel/setup.bash
roscd path_planning

For use with ROS, please use the second method since it will be needed later on regardless.

There are two ways to run the code.

1. main.py

To run a given test case, merely go into main.py and comment out everything but the given test case initialization and find_path function. All search algorithms can be used with both types of action sets and all created maps. There are 3 maps: TestMap (relatively simple map), SubmissionMap (more complicated map), and TestNoPathMap (no possible path between start and goal locations). Furthermore, there are two types of action sets:

1. Discrete. In this case, the robot moves in the cardinal directions or diagnally. These can be set by the user.
2. The other case works for mobile robots which can turn a certain number of degrees and traverse by a fixed radius. Many of these parameters can be set according to the user and others will be set by the command line. Examples of input parameters can be seen on the script.

To test discrete cases, comment out the

action_set = search.Search.gen_robot_action_set()

line. This line resets the action set to the non-discrete case.

The name of the python file is simply "main.py". To run the main, type ...

python main.py

2. path_planning_node.py

Make sure the proper setup.bash is sourced then run

roslaunch path_planning turtlebot3_map_661.launch

This will automatically run both gazebo and the automation node. Please note that each action set in the main script can also be used here as well but only the gazebo map has a corresponding gazebo interface.

Further note that there are many customizable ros params that can be selected from the the launch call. Type the above roslaunch command, add a space, then double tap the "TAB" key to see all parameters. To select non-default parameters such as the starting location of the turtlebot, type:

roslaunch path_planning turtlebot3_map_661.launch start_x_pos:=1 start_y_pos:=1 start_yaw:=90 

and both the launch file and python search file should update accordingly (through ROS parameters)

The search will prompt the user for certain attributes and others can be defined in the main function.

Please follow all terminal instructions once the program starts.

To run the manual mode, first wait for a prompt that says "User can start driving." Then, open a new terminal, source the package and run

rosrun path_planning turtlebot3_teleop_key

Follow the command prompt instructions to move turtlebot.

Videos can be found in this playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rhwp2Mofshw&list=PLoQLXWMjdIjRBjriZcNAFHTQGuJDQBsIJ&index=1&ab_channel=DaniLerner